CHAPTER 13
OLD FRIENDS AND OLDER ENEMIES

Red Sands Hotel
Room 1121
********************

Dana awoke to a feeling of vague uneasiness and the absolute certainty that she
was being watched. She glanced at the remains of the fried calamari and
marinara sauce that she'd eaten earlier in a mad frenzy. Once again she
wondered what Mulder had done to get room service to deliver such an unusual
request to their room at such an odd hour. On second thought, maybe she really
didn't want to know.

Taking her pistol carefully from the night stand, Dana scanned the darkness of
their room. Cold fingers of tension danced down her spine as she peered into
the gloomy corners unlit by the ever-present neon lights outside their window.
She didn't know how she knew, but she sensed a presence here that she knew was
not her husband's.

A quick glance at the travel alarm clock Mulder detested with such passion
showed a blinking red "5:00 a.m." glowing in the dark. His side of the bed was
still empty. She couldn't help feeling that something was wrong.

Pulling the sheet around her body, Dana reached for the light. "Who's there?"
she demanded as the lamp clicked on.

Somewhere in Reno
5:00 a.m.
*******************

"It appears we have located the enterprising Mr. Simons," the thin voice rasped
through
the smokey haze that hung heavy in the dark, dreary little room.

"Enterprising?" the smoker inquired with a carefully crafted, disinterested
tone.

A skeletal hand reached through the air and plucked the offensive smoking butt
from the smoker's stubby, yellow-stained fingers, crushing it into the desk's
shiny, wooden finish. The smoker frowned. Power plays, intimidation,
domination -- these were the dark skills in which he prided himself. It had
taken many years of bitter experience, sacrifice, and calculated betrayals to
perfect these tools. Being on the receiving end of what he administered on a
daily basis was no less than humiliating.

He forced down his annoyance, carefully maintaining a neutral expression. He
had good reason to be worried about his precarious position in the scheme of
things, but he wasn't about to let that show through his mask, either. In any
case there was no way in hell that he was going to let this
asshole know that he was affected in any way, shape, or form by the being's
words or actions. Some major blunders had been made on his part over the past
few years. Fox Mulder's name immediately came to mind as the source of the
majority of his problems.

Well, perhaps he couldn't do anything openly about Mulder, but there was plenty
he could do to influence the fate of Dr. Scott Simons. If Dr. Simons was to
play the part of sacrificial lamb, so be it. It would be far easier to deal
with his disappearance than it could ever be dealing with Mulder's. Simons was
just a minor cog in a much larger gear that ran the mechanisms of lies and
deceptions of a government that sanctioned the systematic dehumanizing torture
of thousands of its own people, the sole purpose being to maintain the balance
of power and insure the eventual redemption of a selected few. Scott Simons was
easily expendable. Unfortunately for him, Fox Mulder was not.

He maintained contact with his visitor's hollow, emotionless orbs, reached into
his suit pocket, and slowly retrieved another Morley from the pack. He brought
the cigarette deliberately to his mouth and with exaggerated slowness, struck a
match and lit the end. This was still his domain and until he heard otherwise,
he still had *some* power here. "Implement standard clean up operations," he
ordered. "And when you apprehend the good Doctor, escort him to the holding
facility so we can have a nice little discussion concerning his usefulness to
this organization and possible early retirement. You *have* sent the retrieval
team to recover him and the prototype, haven't you?"

"As we speak," his visitor hissed with annoyance.

"Good," the smoker replied with a smile that did not reach his eyes. He blew a
large cloud of smoke into the room. "Notify me when he's in custody and the
prototype has been recovered."

The figured nodded stiffly and left the room. He rued the day he was assigned
as mediator to these infernally primitive beings. His only consolation was that
in the scheme of things, they would eventually become a useful commodity.

Red Sands Casino
5:00 a.m.
******************

Jennifer Lyons scanned the room and shifted her weight nervously from one foot
to the other. Her friends said this would be easy and to keep her cool. She
had so far, carefully following her friends' instructions to the letter. Never
before had she even tried anything like this. Sliding the metal-lined roulette
ball onto the table while placing the magnetic strip underneath unnoticed had
given her a momentary thrill. Now, however, she was having second thoughts.

Jennifer had never cheated at anything in her entire life. She'd always been a
good girl, maybe a bit too good. She'd earned each A she'd gotten in school,
went with her family to church every Sunday, and even volunteered at a nursing
home. Now she was living on her own, going to college in a strange town hundreds
of miles away from her family. And she wanted desperately to fit in.

Of course, she shouldn't even be here. She'd been carded at the door, but the
fake I.D. Lisa had given her got her past the security guard. It even had her
name and picture on it - only the birth date had been altered to reflect that
she was 22 and could legally gamble, unlike her 19 year old real self. "The
trick is not to make you older than you could be," Lisa had said, and it worked
like a charm. That was the first cheat, and small as it was, it had given her
courage to try the real thing.

Cheating at gambling made her feel a little dirty, but she was winning big time
and she really didn't want to disappoint her sorority sisters. Besides, if she
chickened out now, she'd never hear the end of it. Just a little longer and
then she could leave and this whole thing would be over. She'd be one of the
sisters for sure, and maybe one of the frat boys would even ask her out.

Watchful electronic eyes observed from their mechanical prison. For once the
consciousness within was indecisive on how to proceed.

Red Sand Hotel
Executive Washroom, 10th floor
5:00 a.m.
**************

Scott wasn't usually at work this early but something just wasn't right. Maybe
it was having the FBI breathing down his neck; maybe it was unpredictable
behavior of a technology he didn't really understand; or maybe it was the fact
that his so called technology was borrowed from individuals who could crack his
nuts and eat them for breakfast if they ever caught him. In any case, he was
worried and hadn't been able to sleep all night.

"You look like hell, buddy," he muttered at his reflection. Maybe he should
have gone home, but for some reason he'd decided to stay at a suite in the
hotel. Probably being overly paranoid, but he thought it was a wise move.

Scott wondered, not for the first time, if his system was responsible for the
murders the FBI
was investigating. He didn't think so, but what if he was wrong? Would that
make him a murderer, too? God, he had to do something. This whole thing had
gotten way out of hand and now he wasn't sure if he could correct the damage.

<Mulder...> He could talk to Agent Mulder. The guy was a smartass but he got
the distinct impression that Mulder would be one of the few people who'd believe
his story. It was pretty clear from their meeting that the man had his own
agenda and was nobody's flunkie. Maybe at the same time he'd let the guy in on
the fact that his fickle little friend evidently found him attractive and jumped
ship -- that is unless he'd already found out the hard way.

Scott gently began to push open the bathroom door, but what he saw stopped him
dead in his tracks. Half a dozen goons in black suits were piling into his
alarm station. If the sounds he was hearing were correct, they were also
destroying everything in their path. They'd found him!

He closed the door as gently as he could, then shut himself in a stall and
climbed on top of the commode, crouching so that his head wasn't visible over
the top of the stall door. SHIT!! <You're in big ass trouble now, Einstein.
What the fuck are you going to do?> Maybe if they took the brain thing, they'd
forget about him. The remembered odor of cigarette smoke flooded his brain.
No, no, they certainly wouldn't let this go. *He* wouldn't let this go. It
didn't matter if his little friend was no longer with him. They'd never believe
he didn't have it and the one person who could possibly help him didn't know
that he did have it.

Christ!!! Why did life have to be so fucking complicated?

Red Sands Hotel
Rm 1121
****************

"My are we feisty this morning!" the elfin-sized creature retorted amiably from
the shadows.

Dana pulled the sheet around her a little tighter.

Noting her discomfort from an obvious lack of clothing, her visitor motioned to
the bathroom door with a gallant bow. "Though I am intrinsically acquainted
with the curves and planes of human anatomy, I can see that you are not
comfortable conversing with me while adorned in your present attire -- or lack
thereof. Please feel free. I'll wait, but please be brief. Time is of the
essence and we must move with alacrity."

Placing her weapon back on the nightstand, Dana studied the impish rogue leaning
nonchalantly against the closet door frame.

"Why are you here?" she asked with an annoyed expression crossing her features.
She paused. "And how in the hell did you get in our room? Don't people know
how to knock where you come from?" she added with a scowl.

"Where I come from, dear lady, 'knocking' would be considered a totally inane
and ludicrous primitive custom truly worthy of being ignored."

"That may be so," she grumbled "But 'when in Rome...'"

"Ah, yes, of course. I will endeavor to remember your quaint little customs in
the future," he chided. "Though it may be difficult since there are sooo many of
them."

Dana threw the end of the sheet over her shoulder in toga fashion, picked up her
hastily discarded clothing from the floor, and marched into the bathroom,
closing the door behind her with a resounding thud. "Who in the hell does he
think he is, barging in here unannounced?" she ranted softly. <He's the one
who'd saved your husband's life...and on more than one occasion.> She shoved
her legs into her jeans and pulling Mulder's Redskins sweatshirt over her head.

She didn't even want to hazard a guess as to why he was here now.

Red Sands Casino
5:05 a.m.
*******************

They were halfway to the bank of elevators when Mulder grabbed Skinner's arm in
a vice-like grip and squeezed. "Mulder!" Skinner yelped, jerking his arm and
getting ready to read him the riot act. But one look at Mulder made it clear
that wherever Mulder was, it wasn't in the here and now.

The young man's hand flew to his head and a pitiful groan escaped from between
his tightly clamped teeth. In his mind he was watching a young woman cheat at
the roulette table. But it wasn't him. The vision came to him through the eyes
of another, along with brief glimpses of places he'd never been, people he'd
never known, and knowledge that he had no business
knowing.

The woman and the roulette wheel came back into view, then magnified and
clarified into a close up still. With the part of his mind that was still Fox
Mulder, he finally understood what was bothering him about the videos -- the
close ups. The Red Sands' system was the only one to provide close ups and only
of the cheaters -- no one else.

She was being targeted. He knew it. He saw her gather her winnings and head
for the door.

"Nooooo!!!!" Mulder howled. He released Skinner's arm and blindly rushed
through the casino floor, leaving a trail of spilled silver and miffed customers
in his wake.

After a few seconds, Skinner recovered from Mulder's unexpected outburst and
followed as best he could through the still crowded casino. <Christ Almighty,
for someone who could hardly walk a minute ago, that man can run.>

Red Sands Casino
Scott Simon's office
5:05 a.m.
*****************

Black ops tore through Scott's office pillaging everything in their way until
they came upon the device they'd been sent there to retrieve. Granted Dr.
Simons wasn't present, but at least they'd located the prototype. Now to take
care of disconnecting the damn thing from whatever Simons it connected to.
Their instructions had been very explicit - inflict no damage on it. Failure to
follow instructions was lethal, and they all knew it.

This could take a while.

Red Sands Hotel
Room 1121
************

Scully emerged from the bathroom in a little better mood than she'd gone in
with, half expecting her uninvited guest to be gone when she came out. Staring
across the room, she saw that he now occupied the small wing-chair next to the
night stand. "You're still here," she muttered without much enthusiasm. He
always seemed to make an appearance only during times of crisis and that
particular thought was beginning to worry her. Dr. Jay was here and Mulder was
conspicuously absent. "What's wrong?" she asked with a voice that conveyed a
mixture of dread and anticipation. "Where's Fox?"

Dr. Jay's teasing attitude was instantly replaced by one of serious concern. "I
was going to ask you. You mean you don't know?" This was unexpected. He had
taken it for granted that Fox would be here at this hour or that she would at
least know where he was. This was not good. Suddenly full of nervous energy, he
got up from the chair and moved over to the window, looking out at a gradually
lightening sky. No, this was not good at all.

"Why? Don't *you* know where he is?" she asked pointedly. "You've never had a
problem finding him before. And while we're at it, just who *are* you anyway?
And why do you continue to observe us from the shadows?"

For the first time since she'd met him, Dr. Jay seemed to be nervous and unsure
of his reply. "Fox is in danger," he warned, neatly avoiding all her questions.
"I have been unable to track him for the last few hours due to a concentrated
mass of interference."

Her questions forgotten, Dana's face dissolved into a mask of rage. "TRACK him?
It was YOU, wasn't it?" She remembered the small object taken from Mulder's jaw
and her anger boiled over. "What the hell did you do to him? What's the
matter, can't check up on your lab experiment?" she snarled. "He's not some
wild animal you can tag and release for study. He's a human being!" Tears
welled in her eyes and Dr. Jay took a step back, stunned by the raw force of
emotion being hurled in his direction.

How did she know? No one knew except for a few individuals and of course, the
Collective. "What are you talking about?" he ventured.

Dana eyed him warily. "Do you honestly believe I don't know that you, or
whoever it is you work for, are responsible for that damn chip?"

"Chip? What chip?" Dr. Jay's voice grew rigid with horror at what he thought
she was implying.

Glaring at him and still distrustful of his innocence, Dana took a chance and
decided to let him in on what they'd discovered imbedded in her husband's jaw.
"The microbiochip the dentist pulled from Mulder's jaw the night we got here.
That's what chip."

The little man's eyes ignited in a fiery maelstrom of rage that rivaled her own.
"Those vile, evil, sons of Hades," his voice echoed through the room with a
booming sound that seemed incompatible with his small stature.

They stood glaring at each other, each lost in their own anger. But anger
wasn't going to get them anywhere, Dana realized. She looked away from the
little man and took several deep breaths, trying to force her emotions under
control. When she figured her anger was down to a manageable level, she turned
her gaze back to Dr. Jay. "You're not responsible are you?" she finally asked
with dawning understanding, trying hard to ignore a suspicious nature born of
past betrayals.

"No, I am not." He shook his head sadly as his anger clung to his being like a
shroud. "I... I could never harm Fox, Dana. I thought you knew that by now.
He is too much a part of me," he sighed in heavy resignation.

Dana didn't respond. She was waiting for explanations, he realized, and this
time denial and circumvention were not going to appease or deter her. He plopped
back down into the chair and prepared to tell her what she needed to know.

Red Sands Casino
Alley outside the employee exit
5:07 a.m.
****************************

Jennifer exited the casino through the side door and made her way toward the
alley where her friends said they'd meet her. She still didn't feel right about
this, but if she didn't go through with it, she'd never belong... and belonging
was important.

She was just stuffing her winnings into her large purse when someone came flying
out of the building as if the devil himself were after him. He ran toward her,
yelling something but she couldn't understand his words. Above her a neon sign
glowed with an unnatural brightness against the pre-dawn light. Time seemed to
slow as she felt her chest tighten with a fear she didn't understand. <I'm going
to die,> she thought.

"MULDER!!! What the fuck are you doing? Slow down, goddamn it!!!" Skinner
gasped, trailing Mulder by at least ten lengths. Skinner thought he was in good
shape but this fucker could flat outrun rings around him.

Mulder saw the unnatural glow of the neon light above the woman he'd seen in his
vision. Something clicked into place and he remembered the broken neon tubes
he'd found at the other crime scenes. No, he could not let this happen again.
This time he would be in time.

The neon tubing burst as a fine line of fire shot toward the frightened woman.
Mulder pulled up what little strength he had left and lunged forward into her,
knocking her out of the laser's path.

Red Sands Hotel
Room 1121
****************

"What do you mean, he's a part of you? What are you saying?" she asked, trying
to keep the frantic tones from her voice. This was too much. Maybe she didn't
want to know what this man was trying to tell her. Perhaps she could just live
happily in ignorance. <No, it was too late for that.>

Dana plopped down on the edge of the bed and waited expectantly -- for what? She
wasn't sure.

Red Sands Hotel
Scott Simon's office
5:08 a.m.
*******************

"I don't give a fuck if you don't know how this thing is hooked up. Just grab
it and let's go," said the largest man in the room. "We've been here too long
already."

His tall, thin associate wiped the sweat out of his eyes. "Listen, asshole, I'm
going as fast as I can. Do you want to explain how we screwed this thing up?" He
reached gingerly over the mass of wiring and connectors and yanked the last few
wires away from the main body of the machine. The prototype was finally free of
its moorings. Let somebody else figure out how to get it out of its container.
"Got it!" he exclaimed. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

Scott peeked out of the door just in time to see the mass of black suits head
back down the hallway with the apple sized receptacle in their possession. Boy
would they be pissed when they found out that the lights were on and nobody was
home. Scott silently closed the door, leaned his back up against the wall and
exhaled the breath he'd unknowingly been holding.

Red Sands Hotel
Room 1121
*****************

Dr. Jay bowed his head, looking down at his feet as he spoke. "Well, my dear,
let me tell you a little bedtime story," he began.

"Long ago and far away there was a race of people who had nearly reached the
pinnacle of what they could achieve. Instead of appreciating what they had,
they became complacent and self-indulgent, wallowing in a mire of greed and
debauchery unparalleled in their long and eventful history. Brother raised hand
against brother, nation against nation, until their world dissolved into one
final Armageddon of fire and ash, blinking out of existence within the wink of
an eye.

"Luckily, a few weary travelers survived to wander aimlessly in search of a
place to call home. With them, the legacy of their people was preserved within
the collective consciousness of those who remained. The sum of all their
knowledge, philosophy, art, and technology, along with the history of their
triumphs and especially of their failures, remained intact yet dormant for eons.
You see, without eager receptive minds to embrace their knowledge, they were an
unproductive race barren of purpose. And so they wandered.

"One day they came upon a small, beautiful world not unlike their own that had
been destroyed so long ago. To their dismay, they found the primitive people
inhabiting this small blue and green sphere making the same disastrous errors
that had destroyed their own home. The Collective, as they had come to be
known, wanting to save these people from their own shortsightedness, contacted
the rulers of the land to offer their assistance. Of course, being what they
were, the rulers were willing to accept the technology that the visitors
offered, but were uninterested in obtaining the knowledge of how to use that
technology for the good of the whole. This was unacceptable to The Collective
and their technology was withheld.

"This small world stood poised on the brink of nuclear holocaust and indi
scriminate mass destruction, its people encouraged in their folly by another
race known only to us as 'The Others.' This race did not have the best interests
of the people of this small planet at heart. They aligned themselves with
whatever power they deemed most useful to them, secure in the knowledge that the
people of this planet would eventually destroy themselves, leaving the planet
vacant for their own uses. The Collective could not prevent this -- they were
too few and their assistance had already been rejected. The Collective concluded
that if they could not prevent this wholesale annihilation, they could at least
enable a few of its inhabitants to survive. Thus, another offer was made."

Dr. Jay glanced at Scully. He wasn't sure how she'd take this part of his
story, but it had to be told.

"In utero genetic manipulation in their unborn children was *not* an option most
people found appealing," he continued. "Fear ruled their intellect so
thoroughly that only one man out of hundreds had the courage to step forward and
offer up his own unborn child as testament to his belief in a better world. A
donor was obtained from the Collective and the procedure performed under the
guise of an amniocentesis. Shortly thereafter, the nuclear crisis passed and
The Collective learned of the government's intentions to use the knowledge that
was offered to them
earlier as a weapon to gain dominance over their fellow man. The Collective
declined involvement with any further experimentation and rescinded their offer
of assistance to an immature society incapable of trust, empathy, or sound
judgment.

"The Others, however, were not above gross experimentation or participation in
unethical endeavors that would further their own agenda. Corrupt government
factions throughout the world welcomed the Others with open arms. Even though
their technology was not as advanced as the Collective's, the powers that be
obviously felt that some technology was better than no technology at all and the
Others did not demand ethical restraints."

He paused to let his story sink in, could almost see her making the connections
between what she knew and what he'd told her. Of course, he'd skimmed over a
great deal of the story, but he just didn't have time to go over the details at
the moment.

Red Sands
Alleyway
5:08 a.m.
*******************

Mulder screamed in agony as the light burned its way through his lower leg. He
hit the pavement in a mass of agony. "Oh shit! Shit! Oh fuck! AAHHH!" The
obscenities flowed from his mouth like a long practiced litany of chants that
even Melissa would have appreciated.

And if that wasn't enough, his itching brain suddenly felt like it was on fire.
Whatever had been harassing his mind had decided to take up permanent residence.
He just wasn't in the mood for squatters. "I'm getting sick and tired of this
shit," he hissed.

Red Sands Hotel
Room 1121
******************

"You tell a good story," Dana said. "But what has it got to do with Mulder
being in danger and you being our second skin? If you're trying to convince me
in some round about way that my husband is the result of some alien genetic
hybridization, you're full of, pardon the expression, horseshit. Mulder has been
in enough hospitals and has had more tests than a cage full of guinea pigs at
the CDC. If there were any discrepancies or abnormalities, I'm certain someone
would have found them by now. He's as human as a person could possibly get,"
she said adamantly, the door of science swinging soundly shut behind her.

"Of course he is," Dr. Jay replied. "I never said otherwise. Unlike the
Others, it was never the intention of the Collective to create an alien/human
hybrid. It was unnecessary." He sighed - he should have known this wouldn't be
easy. "Look at me, Dana. Do I look that much different than you or Fox?"

Dana shook her head 'no.'

"In fact, when you come right down to the wire," he added, "we are both p
hysically and genetically compatible. The Collective's intentions were to
enhance those characteristics already present that would aid in survival should
a nuclear holocaust have occurred, nothing more. As for why I am a 'second
skin,' as you so figuratively put it..." He took a deep cleansing breath and
exhaled slowly. "I was the genetic donor. I feel... responsible and however
indirect it might be, Fox is the only legacy I have been able to help in
creating."

Dana swallowed several times before she trusted herself to speak. She still
wasn't sure she believed any of this, but what if it were true? "But what
about...?" she began before her voice deserted her and she had to clear her
throat noisily.

"Oh yes, your other question. Why haven't the genetic anomalies been detected?
That's a fair question," Dr. Jay admitted. "But think my dear!! The technology
needed to detect the changes would at least need to be as advanced as the
technology used to make the changes in the first place. I assure you -- it is
not and probably won't be for another millennia."

Dana looked askance. "Say that I believe your little story. I'm not saying
that I do, but just for the purpose of conjecture, let's say you've told me the
truth. What exactly would some of the enhanced characteristics be?"

Dr. Jay smiled. He was really quite fond of this young woman. Stubborn to a
fault, she was at least honest and there was no doubt that she did love Fox.
<If he understood the emotion correctly and after knowing Fox, he was certain
that he did.> "Well for one thing, increased libido and reproductive
capabilities," he chuckled. "Enhanced memory, intellect, endurance,
persistence, and recuperative powers, as well as a highly developed imagination,
with a certain amount of empathetic ability, to name a few."

"If what you say is true..." Her hand slipped down to caress her gently rounded
belly.

"The genetic anomalies would be passed along to your offspring without the aid
of outside intervention. The changes in their father were made as a permanent
augmentation to his basic genetic structure before he was born, " Dr. Jay
finished for her. "They're just a part of who he is."

Dana shook her head as if to clear it. She could sort that out later. Right
now she had a more immediate concern. "You said he could be in danger. Why and
from whom?" she inquired, sliding from her perch on the bed to pace impatiently
across the floor.

Dr. Jay hesitated briefly. He hadn't planned to go into this much detail but
the look on her face told him she wouldn't tolerate anything less than a full
disclosure. Curling his lips into an ironic grin, the little man offered what
information he could. "Even the most intelligent of beings are quite capable
of, how do you say, 'fucking up.' The Collective did so in a big way several
months ago when one of our own decided that it would be advantageous to contain
a copy, so to speak, of the collective consciousness within a tangible
receptacle that could be used to run and navigate an unmanned craft."

"Craft," she repeated. "An unmanned craft?" This was getting harder to swallow
by the minute.

"Yes. You see, the Collective still believes there is hope for humankind. With
the exception of a very few observers, however, they don't want to be personally
involved until your species has evolved enough to accept our help for the
greater good. Needless to say, your Mr. Murphy's Law ensued, the vehicle
crashed, and the 'prototype' receptacle was absconded, presumably by the
government or the Others."

"What's all of this have to do with Mulder?" she prodded.

Dr. Jay sighed patiently. "The Others are too physically different. They are
unable to retrieve the knowledge of the Collective directly. Human beings,
though physically similar, do not possess the mental discipline to handle the
vast amounts of information involved in a direct link. Except perhaps for one
lone product of an experiment successfully completed thirty-four years ago in
Chilmark, Massachusetts."

"Mulder," she said.

He nodded. "The prototype can be the source of great power to whoever possesses
it. The problem is that the communication involved is non-verbal and only
accessible through a member of the Collective or one very unique human being -
your husband. Factions of your government as well as the Others would not
hesitate to extract such information forcibly from one of us if
they could. Lucky for us all -- they cannot. A vulnerable, untrained human
being, on the other hand, would be helpless and probably unable to prevent or
survive their blundering attempts to do so."

Dana's hand clasped the bed post with a knuckle-white grip as a truth she did
not wish to believe in asserted itself in her heart if not her mind. "If these
beings made the effort to implant him with that chip, then..."

"It is more than likely that the security of our experiment was breached long
ago. The Others
are aware of Fox's importance, and they've been harvesting genetic material from
him for years in a vain attempt to produce their own hybrid."

The pain in the little man's eyes was palatable. How could she not believe him?
All right, she could accept the fact that *he* believed the story and perhaps
even these so called government factions. If they did, Fox really could be in
trouble. Especially if after all these years they finally did manage to
actually steal this so-called prototype and had it in their possession. "Have
you
told Fox any of this?" she asked.

"No, that is what I had come here to do," he replied with sadness. "If he would
even believe me," he added.

"Why wouldn't he believe you?" she asked in surprise. "Mulder will believe just
about anything."

"Except when it concerns or applies to him personally," Dr. Jay replied.
"Besides, the problem is moot since he obviously is not here."

"A situation we need to remedy post haste," Dana said with a worried frown. The
sooner she had Fox Mulder in her sights, the better. Granted, she wasn't
completely convinced of this fantastic yarn Dr. Jay was spinning, but she also
had no reason not to believe him either. He had no discernable reason to lie to
her and as far as she could tell, had never done so. <Well, it never hurts to
be safe.>

Picking up the phone receiver from its cradle, dainty fingers danced over the
buttons like a floating butterfly, typing out a familiar sequence that had
ingrained itself upon her brain after three years of constant use.

Red Sands Casino
Reno, Nevada
5:30 a.m.
****************

Jennifer was unconscious, face down in the street, unaware of the the male form
that was protectively cocooned around her.

Shattered glass covered the pavement like a thin layer of crystalline ice.
Mulder would have thought it beautiful had it not been for the tinges of red
that clung to several of the larger shards. Someone was bleeding. He hated
blood, especially if the blood he had to deal with was his own. Carefully, he
rolled away from the young women's body and cursed with experience as a gentle
hand search her neck for a pulse.

Feeling a strong, steady pulse beneath his fingers, Mulder reached down and
tentatively shook her shoulders. "Are you okay?" he inquired hoarsely, thinly
masking a quiver of pain.

No answer. She was out cold but a cursory examination told him that she had no
serious injuries so he deduced that the frightened girl must have fainted.
Cautiously, he lowered the girl's shoulders to the pavement and wiped away a
thin trickle of blood dripping down his cheek with the back of his hand.

<Uh oh. Time to take inventory of all his important body parts> Carefully, he
maneuvered his injured leg around to where he could get a better look at it.
"Shit!" he growled while inspecting what appeared to be a neat round hole burned
through his lower calf. <Another fucking pair of jeans shot to hell. Well look
at the bright side Mulder -- at least it wasn't a suit.> If that wasn't bad
enough, tiny prickles of pain were beginning to assert themselves throughout the
soft expanse of his muscular posterior.

The heavy sound of running feet tore Mulder's attention away from his throbbing
leg and stinging butt long enough to take in the image of A.D. Skinner hauling
ass around a corner and dodging two illegally parked cars while barking orders
into his cellular phone. He hadn't realized his boss was so coordinated --
probably played fucking football, his mind added jealously.

Skinner arrived seconds later, his face flush with effort. Bending over, he
grabbed his knees and gulped in great breaths of air that reminded Mulder of a
dying guppy.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing, Mulder, you crazy son of a bitch?"
Skinner panted pathetically. <Christ, you're not in as great a shape as you
thought you were, Walt.> He coughed several times and straightened, surveying
the mess before him.

Mulder pointed weakly to the prone, young woman beside him. "I couldn't wait
for you, sir," he tried to explain.

Walter's shoes crunched noisily over the broken glass as he squatted down next
to the young woman. She was frightened and could but as far as he could tell,
relatively unscathed.

Mulder, however, appeared quite pale and was sporting an uncharacteristic dazed
look that didn't seem particularly healthy--at least not to him. Crossing
around behind Mulder, he had a good idea why. An ambulance siren echoed through
the chilled morning air and as Skinner watched the flashing lights in the
distance, he was suddenly very grateful that they'd be transporting two live
patients instead of one dead victim. Mulder was right. He was glad he hadn't
waited. "Fox, the ambulance should be here any minute, just don't move, okay?"
he whispered gently.

"Ambulance?" Good, she should be checked out," Mulder agreed.

Skinner placed a hand on the young man's shoulder and squeezed. "You too," he
ordered.

"No!" Mulder stiffened. "No ambulance -- no hospital. I...just can't go. I'm
fine...I'll be fine," he tried to convince his boss.

"Agent Mulder," Skinner slipped into professional mode, "There's definitely a
hole in your leg and your...ah...back is bleeding. You *will* go to the
hospital and have it taken care of."

"No sir," Fox refused adamantly, "and you can't make me go against my will."

"What is your problem?" Skinner glared, "you're going to the goddamn hospital
and that's the fucking end of it," Skinner shouted.

"Or what?" Mulder sneered, "my ass is glass? Too late...it already is," he
moaned painfully, his mind drifting. "Christ!" he mumbled, "Dana's going to be
so pissed, no Calamari...I promised...I promised I'd be careful this time --
stay out of trouble," he babbled, "now *this*," he rambled. "‘Relax,' she
said,'nobody's gonna see it but me,'" he mimicked Dana's voice. "Oh shit, she's
gonna kill me, sir. She's going to string me up by my ankles and use my balls
for target practice. Oh god, no hospital, can't go...no way," he muttered
incoherently as the ambulance pulled up.

Skinner knelt down beside him. This was getting positively ridiculous. Why in
the hell not? It's not like you've never been in one before. Christ, man, over
half the medical facilities in the country have your records and that's not
including Alaska," Skinner retorted, "why the sudden aversion to the medical
profession?"

Mulder eyed him anxiously. "I just...can't," he whispered, glancing nervously
at Jennifer who was thankfully distracted by the arriving paramedics. "Let's
just say that I've had a...um...long and...very strenuous nigh, okay?"

Skinner's eyes lit up with sudden amused understanding. "So...a little *
chafed,* huh? I'm sure nobody's going to notice or care. They're doctors, for
crying out loud."

"Yeah, I know but even doctor's live for a good laugh too. I'm married to one,
remember?"

One eyebrow raised slightly over Walter's wire-rimmed glasses. "I could be
wrong, but I doubt anyone is going to be investigating that part of your
anatomy."

"Sir," Mulder squirmed, "I"ve got a fucking ass full of glass and I don't want
to explain to half the medical community," his voice lowered to barely a
whisper, "...the teeth marks on my tush," he muttered under his breath with
embarrassment.

Skinner burst out with a roar of laughter that he just couldn't contain. Only
Mulder. "Who would have guessed Dana Scully, Janna of the Jungle...Ice Queen,
my ass!!!" he hooted, knowing his laughter was completely incongruous with the
situation at hand but completely unable to stifle it. He tried to be serious
but the image of a carnivorous Scully tortured his funny bone with a merciless
vengeance.

Mulder held his face in his hands and sighed, trying to hide the bright red
blush that covered his entire face but it was useless. Even the tips of his ears
were red. He hated being made a fuss over, and more than that, he hated that he
was being fussed over in public. Who the hell called the ambulance anyway?

Regaining some of his composure, Mulder tried to push himself away from the
pavement. The stabbing pain in his leg stopped him before he got very far.
Damn! He needed to find his phone. Dana must be worried sick about him by now.

"Looking for this?" Skinner held up the small electronic device and shook it
experimentally. Mulder would hear loose components rattling around inside like
a set of maracas.

Mulder closed his eyes. Please god, not another lecture on the destruction of
Bureau property. He really wasn't in the mood.

"How many does this make?" Skinner asked, tilting his head down to Mulder's
level and staring at him over the rims of his glasses.

"Uh... I don't really know, sir," Mulder shrugged, realizing with some chagrin
that his trail of broken cellular phones was rapidly catching up to his long
list of missing flashlights and various other damaged Bureau equipment.

A harried paramedic began poking and prodding at him. She flinched several
times when Mulder lightly smacked her hands away from the area of his anatomy
that needed the most attention. "Come on, stop it. Hey, leave that alone," he
hissed at her. "Listen, I don't want an ambulance and I don't need to go to a
hospital! Just let me sign the release form and you can take the young lady
over there to the ER."

The paramedic was losing patience fast. "No, you listen, sir," she snapped.
"Granted, the heavy denim prevented a majority of the glass from that sign from
making any significant penetration in your buttocks or legs, but there are a few
nasty cuts on your back and a fairly obvious hole in your leg. At the very
least, if you don't get all the glass out, you'll be looking at a possible
infection. Not to mention what kind of damage your leg sustained. Now will you
*please* let me help you get on the gurney?"

Mulder looked up defiantly. He knew he was being an unreasonable bastard, but
at this point, he was beyond caring. "No!" he muttered under his breath.

God, this guy was stubborn. She glanced up at the tall, bald man and wondered
if he had any pull here. Someone had to talk some sense into this idiot.
"Look, I can't treat or transport him without his consent since he is obviously
awake and lucid," she informed the older man.

Skinner just nodded and leaned over Mulder's semi-prone form. "Agent Mulder?"
Skinner uttered softly.

"Yeah?" Mulder turned to answer his boss. He never saw the fist that connected
with his jaw but the stars were real pretty and the darkness that followed was
warm and inviting.

The paramedic gaped at Skinner in open-mouthed surprise as he shook out his
right hand. "Damn!" Skinner growled. "And I thought his head was hard." A
rueful smile played across his lips. "Problem solved," he said. "Besides," he
added in a barely audible whisper, "I owed him one."

Skinner straightened back up. "Take good care of him. I'll follow you in," he
told the paramedic in his normal voice.

She stared down at the now unconscious man at her feet and allowed herself a
fleeting smile. "He's quite adorable when he's unconscious," she chuckled as
two burly EMTs lifted him onto a gurney and into the waiting ambulance.

A corner of Skinner's mouth lifted in response. "He's usually not a bad sort,"
he explained. "He just has an aversion to hospitals, which is ironic since his
wife's a doctor. Jesus, I almost forgot," he muttered as he pulled out his own
phone. This was one call he didn't look forward to making.

*****************************************************

Chapter 14
HEADROOM
(Or...the lights are on, and EVERYBODY'S home)

Red Sands Casino
Coffee Shop
5:30 a.m.
********************

Lily heard about the commotion in the alleyway outside the casino. She was
relieved that nobody had been killed this time, and she was especially relieved
that she hadn't been involved. That's all I'd need, she thought as she made her
way into the kitchen to replace the condiments in the refrigerator. Her relief
would be in soon and she always liked to leave things the way she found them.

Damn Hector -- he was late again. He was supposed to be here at 5:30 a.m., but
as usual, it was 5:30 and he was nowhere in sight. She hoped no customers came
in demanding the $1.99 breakfast special -- two eggs, two strips of bacon, and
hash browns, otherwise known as cholesterol on toast -- before Hector dragged
his butt in to start up the grill. Lily knew she could probably handle the
kitchen but she'd catch hell if someone caught her. She liked Hector, but not
enough to lose her job covering for him.

A falling pot echoed through the kitchen and Lily spun around in the direction
of the noise. "Hector, that you?" She thought she saw something moving in the
darkened kitchen. It wasn't the tardy cook -- he would have answered her.
"Who's there?" she called out while trying to discern shapes in the dark
shadows.

Heart rate kicking up a notch, Lily picked up a frying pan from the grill and
edged her way back to the far end of the kitchen, near the pantry. "I said,
who's there?" she repeated, fear edging into her voice. She thought about
calling for security, but what if it was *him*? She couldn't let anyone know
about that, no matter what.

<He couldn't have found me -- if he's even alive>. She'd been careful. She'd
covered her tracks well, and besides, he wasn't all that smart, just mean. But
there was still that doubt, the extreme possibility that he'd somehow managed to
track her down. Her body shook with barely controlled terror as she peeked
around a corner and into the shadows.

Her knees nearly turned to water with relief as she spied a familiar form
huddled in the corner. "Mr. Simons?" she inquired timidly, lowering the frying
pan to the counter. "What... what are you doing here? You scared me half to
death." Lily let out an exaggerated sigh and sagged against the wall, taking a
good look at him. She wasn't sure but he looked desperate and frightened, two
feelings with which she had more than a passing acquaintance. "Mr. Simons,
what's wrong?"

"I'm in trouble, Lily," he blurted out in a shaking voice. "I'm in trouble and
I don't know what to do." His eyes darted around the room, checking the corners
of the ceiling for surveillance cameras even though he must have known there
weren't any in here. That is, at least as far as she knew. "I'm in such a
mess." He ran a hand through his hair. She noticed that it was shaking. "I need
a place to stay until I can figure this out. Help me, Lily?" he pleaded.

Oh, God, she didn't need this. She couldn't bring this stranger into her tiny
apartment. Could she? No, getting involved with any situation that included
trouble was bound to be a big mistake and a chance she didn't want to take.

But Mr. Simons wasn't a stranger. He'd always been kind to her and treated her
with respect. She couldn't just turn her back on him. If someone had helped
her, maybe her life would have been different. And if she didn't help someone
who needed her now, would she ever be able to forgive herself?

Lily chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully and made a decision she hoped she
wouldn't be sorry for later. "Okay, here," Lily replied, handing him her car
keys. "It's the old blue Ford sedan in the second row of the employee lot,
space 42." She checked her watch. "I'll be out of here in about 15 minutes."

He smiled at her, a tentative grin that reflected the possibility of hope.
"Thanks, Lily. You won't be sorry, I promise."

She hoped he was right.

Sacred Heart Medical Center
Emergency Room
8:30 a.m.
*************

Awareness tugged at the edges of his consciousness. Or *was* it his cons
ciousness? Fleeting images of people, places, and experiences that were in some
cases inexpressible, foreign, and totally alien jockeyed for position in his
mind. There were no reference points for these memories, no familiar ground on
which he could anchor himself to sort out the sensations and information that
pressed upon him from every direction. He was confused and disoriented,
drifting back into the current of thought and emotion like a leaf tossed about
on stormy seas.

He needed something solid to hold on to, something real to focus on, something
to fuel his desire to pull himself from the mire that threatened to engulf him.
He found it just at the outer fringes of the whirlpool that was intent on
pulling him under. A voice...an angry, worried voice... a voice that had filled
his dreams, his mind, heart, and soul -- her voice -- broke through the darkness
like a shining beacon of light.

Reaching out, he embraced that light and pulled its warmth around him like a
soft fuzzy blanket, allowing the comforting familiarity to lift him from the
turmoil in his mind toward his *own* recollections and -- Dana. Her voice fell
upon his ears, at first as just a collection of unintelligible sounds. After a
while the sounds became words and the words became ideas that his brain could
decipher.

"He's been out for three hours," Dana seethed. "And after the CatScan and the
EEG, you're telling me that you don't know why?"

"Agent Scully, I'm telling you we've run every test we can think of and can't
find any physical reason why he's not waking up. Maybe he just doesn't want
to!" the doctor sputtered with aggravation.

"First of all, it's *Dr.* Scully," she spat out, then paused briefly to catch
her breath. "And... I'm sorry. I know you pushed through those diagnostic
tests, and I thank you for that. I didn't mean to snap at you. I know you're
trying to help. I'm just worried."

Dr. Jacobsen smiled faintly. "I understand. And let me say that if I ever find
myself in such a predicament as your partner, I only hope I have someone as
fierce as you to look after me." He handed Scully the chart.

"Well, what about the young woman Mulder knocked down - Jennifer Lyons? When can
we talk to her?" Scully asked.

"She's still unconscious as well," Dr. Jacobsen said.

"I didn't think Mulder hit her all that hard," Scully commented, looking over at
Skinner for confirmation.

"It looked like he just pushed her out of the way," Skinner confirmed.

"What are her symptoms?" Scully asked the doctor.

"Her heartbeat's highly irregular and she's been having trouble breathing. She's
also got a pretty nasty bump on the head, almost as if she didn't even try to
break her fall. We have her on oxygen and we're running some additional tests.
I've ordered her medical records from the University to see if she's got some
kind of congenital heart problem. Her blood work came back normal, so at this
point I'm just looking for some reason for her heart to start acting up. She's
only 19."

"19?" Scully echoed. "What the hell was a 19 year old doing in a casino at 5 in
the morning?"

"Winning, apparently," the doctor replied. "She had quite a bit of money in her
purse, along with two separate pieces of identification. Kids." He shrugged
his shoulders, then headed back toward the nurses' station.

Scully moved over to Mulder's side, silently perusing his chart. Nothing out of
the ordinary. So why didn't he wake up?

"I shouldn't have hit him," Skinner whispered guiltily into the silence.

"What?" Scully asked as though she hadn't heard what she thought she had.

"I said," Skinner sighed, "I shouldn't have hit him. I think this is probably
my fault."

"You *hit* him?" she asked angrily. "What on earth for?"

Skinner lowered his head and his voice. "He was hurt and refused to go to the
hospital..."

"And they wouldn't take him without consent," she continued, "so you..."

"Punched his lights out," Skinner finished quietly. "I had no idea..."

"Relax, sir. Dr. Jacobsen says there's no detectable reason for Mulder's
continued unresponsiveness." He didn't look convinced. "This is probably just
Mulder's way of getting back at you," she said with a small smile. "Or maybe he
knows he's in a hospital yet again and just doesn't *want* to wake up."

He was so cold. He'd been colder but he was having a difficult time remembering
when or where. Moving didn't appear to be a viable option since every muscle in
his body felt like wet spaghetti and refused to obey the messages his brain was
sending. Slowly, he forced his eyes open and perceived a impressionistic blur
of color and shape.

Two figures stood in what he assumed was a doorway. He sensed more than saw who
they were. They were discussing him he knew -- he heard his name mentioned --
but all attempts to call out proved futile. It seemed his goddamn mouth wasn't
much good for anything at the moment except creating a large pool of drool on
the mattress beneath his cheek. He focused on the mattress, on its feel beneath
his body, and gradually his mind began to clear. Mulder shivered and finally
realized he was naked and face down on a hospital gurney with nothing but a
thin, crisp white sheet to preserve his dignity.

The stench of antiseptic solutions assaulted his sense of smell which he noted
with some disgust was working perfectly even if the rest of him wasn't. What
the hell was going on here? <Shit! shit! shit! Another goddamn hospital. I
told Skinner... Skinner?? Son of a bitch popped me in the face.> Memories of
how he ended up here began to coalesce into solid recollections. <You were an
asshole and deserved what you got, shmuck.> But another hospital? Fuck, why
didn't he just phone ahead and make reservations... maybe ask for a discount.
"Hello, this is Fox Mulder. By the way, how are your hospital accommodations
there? I'd like to reserve a room, oh say about two or three days into the
investigation sounds about right." He groaned in his mind and winced at the
sound, realizing he'd finally managed to make the noise out loud.

Dana turned with a start and rushed to his side with Skinner close behind.
"Thank god, he's awake," she said, a broad smile lighting up her face as she
gently stroked Mulder's exposed shoulder. His skin was soft as fine silk,
though alarmingly cool to her touch. "Fox, can you hear me?" she asked loudly.

He wanted to scream "yes, and please lower you voice" but all he could do with
any precision at the moment was blink his eyes and grunt. *Everything* appeared
abnormally loud. The shock was finally wearing off and the pain decided it was
time to kick in. His jaw must have collided with a freight train. Glancing at
what he could see of Skinner's big hands, he conceded that the analogy was more
than justified.

Concentrating on moving his legs, he quickly discovered was a *big* mistake for
the one on the right felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through it.
The numbness in the rest of his body began to recede as his short-circuited
brain started sorting out and rerouting all the conflicting impulses to their
appropriate receptors. All the little aches and pains that he'd been vaguely
aware of suddenly came into focus with glaring clarity. "Ah god!" he groaned
with a great deal more conviction. He could have sworn someone had stuffed his
head inside an empty
gym locker and pounded out the "1812 Overture" on the sides with a sledge hammer
-- complete with firing canons.

Mulder made a half-hearted attempt to roll over onto his back and froze,
wondering when in the hell he'd had the misfortune to sit on a hornet's nest.
He couldn't remember his behind stinging this badly except for the time his dad
had broken half a dozen hickory switches over it when he was thirteen. Dana had
asked about the faint scars once and he'd abruptly changed the subject. She
knew, of course. She'd always known and he loved her dearly for not pressing
him for details.

Skinner's restraining hand carefully guided his stubborn young agent back to his
original position on the gurney. "Take it easy, Mulder," he said.

"Just be still for once and let these people do their jobs," Dana admonished
gently.

"I can't," Mulder croaked. "I've got my own job to do and I can't do it here
with my face in a pillow and my butt in the air."

"Well, you're not going to be able to do it anywhere else either if you don't
slow down, regroup, rest, and do what you're told," she chastised him
thoroughly. "I was so worried," she confessed, "you were out a lot longer than
your injuries warranted. I should have brought you here when you first
collapsed in front of Simons' office."

"What for?" he mumbled into the sheet. "I just had a little trouble waking up
that's all. It's happened before, although I admit not quite this severely."

"When?" Now she was really concerned and by the look of things, so was A.D.
Skinner.

Mulder didn't answer right away. The little effort he put forth to form his
chaotic thoughts and talk had exhausted him. Maybe Dana was right this time.
Maybe he could stay here for just a little while longer... his mind wandered.

"Mulder?"

"Huh?" he muttered groggily.

"When has this happened before?"

"When I was profiling serial killers. Sometimes it was hard to... disconnect.
One of the reasons I try not to do that kind of work anymore," he trailed off in
a low mumble. "Sometimes while getting into their heads, they manage to get
into yours. It can be a fucking pain to get rid of them."

He closed his eyes and his breathing took on an even rhythm. He's asleep, she
thought.

"Oh," he said in a weary voice, rousing himself with an effort. "Find Dr.
Simons. I think some of this involves his system. The system identifies the
victims. Please don't ask me how I know that because I don't have proof and I
don't have the energy or strength at the moment to spend convincing you. Just
for once... accept what I'm telling you and find out who monitors the security
system between 10pm and 6am."

Dana frowned as she met Skinner's eyes over Mulder's back. She didn't know what
to make of Mulder's theory about the Red Sands' security system, but since the
victims were all cheaters it did make sense -- sort of. "Sir?" she asked.

"We'll take care of it, Mulder," Skinner said. "We can hold him for 24 hours
without charging him with anything anyway. Think you'll be able to explain
yourself by then?"

Any answer Mulder might have made was lost in a groan. "Shit! I think I'm going
to throw up again!" He gagged as Dana slid a pan within reach.

"That morning thing again, Mulder?" she asked while tenderly stroking the hair
away from his face as he heaved.

Mulder raised his head and rolled his eyes upward in a dangerous glare that
simultaneously fell upon the A.D.'s curiously raised eyebrow. "Okay, all right.
Yes, I admit it! It's goddamn morning sickness. There, happy?"

Skinner coughed into his fist, hiding a grin. Ok, it wasn't really funny... but
it really was funny.

Well, shit. "Maybe if I have it, you won't get it," he sighed under his breath.
He was a broken man. He'd committed the ultimate cardinal sin against the male
credo by admitting he was a softie. So what? She already knew it anyway.
<Yeah, but you did it in front of your boss!> Big deal. You're face down on a
gurney, buck naked with your ass exposed to the masses and
your fucking face in a bed pan. How much more humiliating and undignified can
you possibly get than that? He could justifiably claim extenuating
circumstances. When he figured the blush had disappeared some, he sent a
pleading look toward Skinner for a little understanding.

"Don't worry, Agent Mulder," Skinner snickered as he walked out of the room. "I
won't tell anyone... except maybe... Jake."

"Don't do me any favors, sir," Mulder grumbled. Run at the Mouth Moorehouse
would have it all over the damn station by sundown. He'd be lucky if he didn't
find plastic puke in his chair the next time he showed his face there.

As Skinner disappeared around the corner toward the waiting room, he nearly
found himself bowled over in the hallway outside by Jake Moorehouse. <Well,
speak of the devil.> Though Walter decided he generally liked this crude hulk of
a man, dancing with him in a hospital corridor hadn't exactly been on his list
of lifetime accomplishments.

Moorehouse stared at the distinguished looking man doing the cut and dodge to
avoid the near collision with him and smiled. The fancy clothes and title
couldn't hide the basic raw cussedness that Jake knew lurked just beneath the
smooth, well-honed glib facade this man presented to the public. He fancied
himself as an expert at reading people and his instincts told him that he was
glad A.D. Skinner was on their side.

Jake nodded toward the E.R. "Heard the kid got into a little trouble this
morning. Just thought I'd come by and see if he's still in one piece."

Skinner nodded his head slowly. "Yeah, what else is new," he muttered in glum
reply.

Moorehouse chuckled and leaned up against the wall. "Worrisome bastard, ain't
he?"

Skinner grinned. "That's putting it mildly. Let's just say... if I had hair,
it most certainly would be
gray."

Jake tilted his head to one side, listening to the commotion and somewhat loud
conversation emanating from one of the E.R. bays. "Well, I'd say he can't be
too bad off if he's got enough gumption to be testing the ire of the Red Irish
Terror. Not much sense, but a lot of gumption, yessiree," Jake snickered.
"Guess I'd better go break it up before she lops off his kneecaps
or somethin' more important," he grunted as he lumbered toward the partially
drawn white curtain partitions.

Mulder succeeded in propping himself up precariously on the edge of his thin
mattress. Returning circulation in his lower leg sent a wave of liquid fire
crashing through the limb as it dangled loosely above the shiny white tiled
floor. He gasped in spite of himself.

"Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?!" Dana glared at him in
disbelief.

"I'm trying to get the hell out of here so I can do my job," he bellowed back,
just a little more forcefully than he'd intended. "Where are my clothes?" he
asked, tugging the nearly diaphanous sheet a little tighter around his hips,
clasping it together in front of him with one strategically
placed hand.

"Oh, no you don't, Sherlock," she said, shaking her head vigorously. "Not in
this lifetime."

"I want my clothes!" he hissed menacingly through clenched teeth.

"I don't think so," she replied with a strained calm. "Even if I could m
agically produce them, you couldn't wear them. They are, how shall I say? Air
conditioned."

"What!?"

"They had to cut them off you, Mulder, to get the glass fragments out of your
butt and your back, not to mention treat your leg. Guess you'll just have to
wait until I can bring you a clean set, won't you?"

Mulder narrowed his eyes. "And just *when* might that be? I mean, can I get
some sort of time frame here if it's not asking too, too much?"

Scully smiled sweetly, moved in closer, and lightly pinched either side of his
mouth together with her thumb and forefinger until his lips puckered. "When your
doctor says you're okay and can leave," she patronized him with the best effort
at baby-talk that she knew how to imitate. She then placed a small kiss on the
irresistible pucker she'd created and stepped back.

This last course of action threw him for a loop. His Scully was *not* the
baby-talk type, not to him anyway. Mulder stumbled mentally, trying to remember
the witty comeback he'd had on the tip of his tongue before her totally
uncharacteristic display had derailed his train of thought. She'd done that on
purpose, he mused. She'd caught him off guard and he'd fallen like a rock.
Dana was playing with his head. He should know. He'd taught her everything he
knew. "Not fair, Scully," he complained.

"Funny," she replied. "I don't remember 'playing fair' as being one of our
marriage vows."

"A huge oversight on my part," he muttered. Okay, he'd made a major faux pas
here and it was more than apparent that he wasn't going to be able to intimidate
her into getting him out of this place. He wasn't great at intimidation anyway.
He supposed that it just wasn't his nature.

Time for a change of tactics then. Perhaps appealing to her analytical nature
with logic and reason would be more to his advantage. Providing, of course,
that there was a rare possibility that he could find anything remotely logical
or reasonable in what he was trying to do.

He realized he'd be pushing himself by checking out before he knew he was fit,
but damn it, he was so close to an answer he could taste it. Staying here would
only cost him precious time. "You're a doctor, Scully," he wheedled annoyingly,
knowing he'd been able to fudge on hospital stays before using that ploy.

"Yes, that's very true," she agreed. "But I'm not *your* doctor. And until
*your* doctor is satisfied that *your* tests are positively, absolutely normal
in every way, *your* perforated bottom is remaining out of action right here in
this lovely, safe, clean, and sterile room."

Mulder's face fell. This was not the outcome he'd anticipated to this little
disagreement, and not getting his way was beginning to make him cranky.
Covertly, inch by inch, he began a steady slide from the gurney toward the floor
and stopped when the tips of his toes made contact with the cold hard surface.
Christ, and there was no denying, it was *cold.* Mulder winced inwardly. He
was just going to have to show her that she was completely misinformed about his
condition. He'd worked before in much worse shape than this, damn it, and he
felt an increasing urgency about this case he couldn't explain.

Something was going on here, something much bigger than the unfortunate deaths
of five people with larcenous tendencies and the attempted murder of a sixth.
He knew it. Call it instinct, insight, or any number of other fanciful terms,
but he felt the wrongness that permeated this case as if it were an entity in
its own right. He was aware with unwavering certainty that events of major
significance were about to take place and that in some small way, he was
destined to be a part of it. He had to get out of here -- had to.

He pushed himself away from the gurney before she could stop him and placed his
weight on his injured leg. The equivalent of an electric shock shot through the
sole of his foot and shrieked upward to register in his brain about a half a
second later, causing the leg to buckle and rest of him to pitch forward. He
was just about to consummate an unexpected date with the floor when he landed
heavily into two strong arms that appeared from nowhere.

"Whoa, kid!" Jake exclaimed, dragging Mulder's butt back to bed. "I ain't no
doctor, but I think I can safely say that I don't think you're supposed to be
doin' that without help."

"Look," Mulder grimaced. "I'm close. I think I know some of what's going on,
but I need proof because NOBODY is going to believe me. I need to talk to Dr.
Simons. I need to talk to him right away. I think he's gotten into something
over his head and we need to find him. I can't vegetate here like a bump on a
log while fate hangs in the balance."

"The only thing you're close to at this moment is a fucking concussion if you
try something stupid like that again," Jake replied. "You're not gonna be good
to nobody if you freaking kill yourself trying to push your body to do things
that it ain't ready for. So shut up and rest like a good little Fibbie.
Besides, you think you're the only investigator on this case? What the hell am
I, chopped liver?"

"You don't have the same kind of experience I do," Mulder retorted.

"Yeah, and thank god for that," Jake said. "You just stay put until your doc
says you can blow this joint." He inclined his head toward Scully. "Red and I
will take care of this Simons character. Don't worry, he's not gonna go
anyplace we can't find him."

Mulder opened his mouth to protest just as the biggest, toughest looking nun
he'd ever seen marched into the room.

Moorehouse automatically backed up. This woman reminded him of a drill sergeant
he once had in boot camp in his days as a Marine.

"My name is Sister Margaret," she announced.

Mulder scowled. <It figures.>

"You can make this easy or you can make this hard, young man. I can spot the
troublemakers and YOU are a troublemaker." She took one look at the spreading
splotch of red on the otherwise clean white gauze bandage covering his leg and
grunted irritably. "Been trying to walk on that leg, eh? Try that again and I
promise I'll come back in here and tie you down. Is that clear?"

He forced a belligerent stare in the big nun's direction. He wasn't about to be
ordered around by a two hundred pound penguin with coke bottle glasses.

Mulder shot Dana a pleading look that surpassed all other pleading looks he'd
used in the past. "Come on, Dana. You're not REALLY going to leave me here all
alone with," he glared pointedly at Sister Margaret, "Attila the Nun, are you?"

"That does it, Lover Boy," Sister Margaret replied while forcefully rolling him
back on his stomach. "I'm not too old not to know a hicky when I see one and I
must say that it's not everyday I get a patient with one so prominently
displayed on their posterior."

She turned to Dana and winked. "Now if you wish to continue to have a good time
in the future with your lovely lady over there, I would suggest that you
consider behaving yourself. If not, I might seriously consider having you
neutered. By the way, dearie," she informed Dana with the shadow of a smile
creasing her eyes. "I've heard it said that it makes them a lot less ornery. If
he continues to be a pain, you might want to reconsider your options."

Dana stifled a laugh and pulled a mask of intense contemplation over her
features as if she were giving the advice some serious thought.

Mulder gulped.

"Nah," she smiled. "I kind of like him the way he is, but tying him up is okay.
He might even like it," she added with a smirk. She bent over and kissed him
lightly on the lips. "Jake and I will check out Simons. You just relax and do
what you're told until we get back."

"Dana..." Mulder sighed.

"No," she replied firmly one last time before heading out of the E.R. with Jake
following close behind.

Mulder twitched visibly as his partner and Detective Moorehouse left the room.
He belonged with Dana, not here, floundering on his belly like some beached
whale. The thought of her working with someone else played havoc with his
sensibilities and he momentarily entertained unrealistic hopes of escape. That
is until "Nunzilla the Enforcer" blocked his view of the exit, his only path to
freedom, and just about everything else in the room.

"Don't even think about it, G-man," Sister Margaret responded to Mulder's
unspoken thoughts with a stern looking frown. "If I were you, I'd resign myself
to having a nice, uneventful, quiet, and restful day."

"Then I guess we're both lucky that you're not me, huh?" Mulder retorted without
really considering his words. He was upset. He was angry at himself for
getting in this situation once again and he took it out on whoever was closest,
which this time was Sister Margaret.

The sister's brows furrowed, reminding Mulder of two large caterpillars playing
tag across her forehead. She was not happy with him. Nope, not happy at all.
He guessed he really couldn't blame her. He was well aware that he wasn't the
best patient in the world.

Mulder wondered if the stories he'd heard about nuns were true. He wasn't in
any condition to handle disciplinary action should she decide to punish him for
being a naughty patient. And this good sister looked as though she could snap
nails in half with her teeth. But he was an adult -- she wouldn't really do
anything. Would she? It's not like he'd had a lot of experience with nuns.
Perhaps he'd been just a tad more disrespectful than he should have been. <Good
work, Mulder. You've done it again, single-handedly alienated the one person in
this hole that you really needed to be on your side. Smooth move, chump.>

He knew better than to break the number one unwritten rule of hospital co
nfinement -- NEVER, EVER, under any circumstances, piss off the nurses, no
matter how obnoxious or unattractive they may be. It'd been his past experience
that after having your butt hermetically sealed to a bed pan for an hour or two,
ALL nurses became beautiful creatures possessing the patience of Job. Maybe he
should extend that rule to nuns who worked in hospitals as well.

Mulder smiled congenially through his pain and meekly offered Sister Margaret a
very sincere and humble apology for being such a grouch. "Listen," he rasped.
"I... um..." <Oh, that was real articulate.> "What I mean is..." he fumbled
for words.

"Your honest remorse for past transgressions is accepted," Sister Margaret
replied. "Providing, of course, that you behave and give me no further grief,"
she added. "And I don't foresee that as being a problem."

Mulder manufactured a suitable pout that quickly became a grimace when he felt
the needle slide into his exposed hip, dispersing the drugs in a fiery explosion
along every nerve.

"Ahhhh! What the fuck was that for?" he gasped in pain while unbidden tears
formed in his eyes.

"Just a little something to guarantee your complete and total cooperation," the
big woman said.

"I didn't think nuns gave shots, just the nurses," Mulder mumbled. "Just what
was in that...." he trailed off, his tongue suddenly feeling thick and too big
for his mouth. This was wrong -- no one should have given him a shot like this,
not now. Before they stitched him up, maybe, but not now. He fought against
it, but the powerful drug worked its way through his system, and the voice that
would have cried out in pain and rage fell into an involuntary silence.

Sister Margaret smiled a very un-nun-like smile as she watched Mulder's head
fall to the pillow. "Don't worry, dear. I'll be back to check on you in a few
minutes," she said. "*Agent* Mulder," she added under her breath.

Thirty minutes later Sister Margaret returned with two orderlies. She hadn't
meant to wait that long, but the E.R. had been buzzing with activity. Normally
quiet in the morning, the bays were backed up with the victims of a multiple-car
collision. She'd hoped to slip Mulder out of his room while the duty nurses
were on break, but there'd been no breaks this morning. And a nun couldn't just
take a patient out of his room without raising questions.

She'd almost decided to risk just moving him anyway and deal with the questions
if anyone stopped her, when she'd overheard one doctors tell a nurse to have
Mulder moved to make room. "Don't worry about it, dear," she'd said to the
nurse. "You're all so busy here, I'll take care of it." The nurse had given
her Mulder's room assignment and that's all there was to it. Sometimes it just
took a little patience.

The orderlies wrestled Mulder roughly from the hospital gurney to a smaller,
more portable version. Sister Margaret knew that with the commotion in the
E.R., no one would notice the smaller bed. This was almost too easy.

Except that Mulder wasn't completely under. How the hell did that happen? she
wondered. She was well-versed with this particular narcotic, and she knew she'd
given him enough to knock him out for hours. He struggled weakly with the
orderlies as they rolled him over on his back, pain radiating from dozens of
cuts. The orderlies slipped an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and strapped
him down to the gurney.

Mulder tried to keep his eyes open, but he was so damn sleepy. He just wished
the voice in his head would let him go back to sleep. Through blurred vision,
he dumbly watched and listened in slow motion while they wheeled him through the
hospital corridors. <I'm being kidnaped,> he thought. <Wonder where I'm going?>
Funny, he should care more about this turn of events, but he didn't. <Must be
that shot,> he thought fuzzily.

Somewhere along the way they lost Sister Margaret. The two orderlies rolled him
out a side exit and toward an unmarked white van.

Hospital Parking Garage
9:45 am
****************

"Shit!" Skinner swore for about the twentieth time that morning. <Call out
sick and play hookey one lousy time in five years and your whole fucking day
goes to hell in a handbasket.>

Slapping the roof of his rental car with his fist, Walter allowed himself a
frustrated growl. "Must have left the damn keys on the table next to Mulder's
bed," he mumbled under his breath. It just fit in with his whole damn day so
far.

After he'd left Mulder's room, he'd stopped in the hospital cafeteria for the
cup of coffee he'd originally meant to get back at the hotel. Back when he'd
first run into Mulder. God, had that only been four hours ago?

Sitting alone in the cafeteria, sipping coffee out of a cardboard cup, he'd
reviewed the morning's events. Why in the hell Mulder had taken off like that
in the casino was still beyond him. When Skinner'd finally caught up with him
in the alleyway outside the Red Sands, whatever had happened there was already
over. It had been pretty clear to Skinner that Mulder had tackled that young
woman, Jennifer Lyons. She was out cold on the concrete, Mulder laying halfway
over her legs. A large portion of the neon sign over the alleyway was
sputtering and sparking, and it looked like most of the glass from the sign was
imbedded in Mulder's behind.

And so Mulder was back in yet another hospital. Skinner had intended to head
back to his hotel room and call his assistant so that she could begin completing
the paperwork this morning's activities would spawn. Then he was going to pay
the Red Sands maintenance people a little visit and ask some pointed questions
about the condition of their neon signs, and maybe check in on Mr. Simons for
good measure. Of course, he wasn't going to get any of that done if he didn't
have his car keys.

He quickened his pace back to the main building.

Dr. Jay appeared before the stark white edifice and shook his head. He should
have known his young friend would end up here. In all his very long lifetime,
he'd never met anyone who could get into this much trouble in such a short
amount of time. To his relief, up until several minutes ago, he had been able
to sense Fox's thought patterns, a comfortable ebb and flow that had led him
here. Now suddenly, without warning, the thread had been cut in a burst of
terror and rage and Dr. Jay moved instinctively with an urgency he had learned
not to question.

He knew in his heart that it had finally occurred to the Others and the dark
factions of the government what the staggering implications were concerning his
ward, Fox Mulder. Personally, Dr. Jay had no misgivings that the Prototype's
collective consciousness had chosen Mulder. That the other factions involved
couldn't know for certain that the Prototype was communicating with Mulder,
after a fashion, made little difference. The mere chance of such a possibility
was enough to warrant Mulder's abduction. Dr. Jay knew they would use Mulder to
obtain the knowledge and power they sought. And whoever held Mulder, held the
key to unlocking the power of the Collective.

The fact that the young man was untrained and very likely unaware of what was
happening made him even more vulnerable and easier for them to take what they
wanted, regardless of what it would do to him. The Prototype must be returned
to its rightful place at all costs, and until a proper transference could be
performed, Fox had to be protected as well... not that he wouldn't do that
anyway, even with his life.

Unknown Location
****************

A cigarette. He needed another cigarette. Why couldn't he keep the damn things
in stock? Shaking hands rummaged through the pile of papers on the desk until
his fingers grasped the half smoked butt smoldering in a buried ash tray.
Lighting the formerly discarded smoke, he took a deep drag and closed his eyes
as he inhaled the putrid taste of stale tobacco. The tremors
temporarily subsided.

He jumped in alarm when the knock came at his door. He was expecting this, but
still it had jolted him. <I must be getting tired,> he thought. That could be
deadly in his line of work. Tired people make mistakes.

He forced himself to sit back in his chair, preparing himself for the problems
he knew accompanied that knock. Somehow he also knew that whatever the problems
were, Fox Mulder was more than likely involved in one way or another... as of
late, he usually was.

He took another drag of his Morley before answering. "Come," he demanded.
Whatever happened, he was still in charge and he'd be damned if he let them
forget it.

The door slowly opened and the tall thin figure approached his desk. He could
almost feel the loathing that this singular being had for him, and he reveled in
the knowledge that he could invoke that kind of emotion in this ugly lump of
flesh, if that's what it really was. "Did you get it?" he asked his visitor
with a deliberately mocking attitude.

The being remained silent for several seconds, observing him with that dead
gaze. "The Prototype receptacle has been recovered," he finally said.
"However, Mr. Simons is still missing." Silence lingered in the air as the
visitor moved toward the only window in the room and stared out into the miles
of empty desert beyond. "The woman has informed us that the container is
vacant," the figure said slowly.

"Do you believe her?" he inquired through a puff of smoke.

"She has not lied to us in twenty-two years, why would she begin now?" the being
replied. "Though we know she is incapable of communion, she is useful in that
she can sense the Collective. She is certain that it is not present in what we
recovered, nor is it likely that the consciousness found a home within Dr.
Simons. Dr. Simons is intelligent for a human being," the
visitor sneered, "but not any more compatible than we are."

He turned back from the window and faced the smoker, his strange face shrouded
in shadow. "My colleagues made a point of reviewing Dr. Simons' recent
activities. They discovered
something very interesting."

"Which is?" He was getting impatient with these little games.

"It seems that Dr. Simons had visitors before we made our little raid. Visitors
from the FBI. Visitors who claimed to be investigating a string of murders that
seemed to be connected to several popular casinos, most prominently the casino
where Dr. Simons was employed. I am certain that I do not have to tell you who
those visitors were, do I?"

He dropped what remained of his cigarette to the floor, squashing out the faint
red glow with the toe of his shoe. "Fox Mulder and Dana Scully," he answered
gruffly.

"My, my, we are becoming more and more intuitive every day," the tinny voice
remarked with sarcasm. "May I also remind you that we know of Agent Mulder's
unique position in this situation. There are no secrets that are not eventually
uncovered. We've known about him from the beginning, but of course so did you,
so did his father. In fact, being the helpful friend
that you were, you arranged the whole thing. On occasion, we tried to copy what
was done but it was all too intricate -- too far beyond even our technical
expertise. But now... now, with the knowledge of the Collective, we could
possess power beyond even your wildest dreams."

"Power which you will be willing to share." There was a dangerous edge to the
smoker's voice. Sometimes these beings needed to be reminded that this was a
joint project.

"Of course," his visitor responded, voice as smooth as silk.

"Of course," he echoed.

"It is lucky that you let Mulder live for he will be the bridge to that k
nowledge," the visitor continued. "If the Collective sensed our retrieval
operation and fled the protection of the artificial environment created in the
Prototype container, as the women says, the obvious recipient of that
consciousness would be one who was bred to receive it."

The smoker took another drag on his cigarette. His promise was over. He would
not risk himself. "Bring him in," he ordered.

"It is being done as we speak," the shadow replied as it glided out the door.

********************************************

CHAPTER 15

Beware of Nuns with a 5 O' Clock Shadow

Hospital Parking Garage
Reno, Nevada
********************

Skinner crossed through the last row of cars on the first floor of the parking
garage when he noticed some unexpected movement by what would appear to be an
emergency side door exit into a service alley. Ordinarily he would have ignored
the commotion but something about the situation made the hair on the back of his
neck stand on end. Years of training and natural instinct insisted that
something wasn't quite right.

A white van was parked in front of the door, in itself probably nothing to get
excited about. Hell, it could have been an ordinary delivery van. But the half
dozen men in black suits milling about set off alarm bells in his brain. Still
a half block away, Skinner forced himself to keep an even gait as he walked down
the sidewalk toward the hospital.

The door opened and an occupied gurney was shoved into the alleyway. Skinner
felt panic knot in the pit of his stomach. He knew that profile. Jesus Christ,
Mulder, who have you pissed off this time? he thought briefly as he reached for
his cellphone and made the call. Knowing it would take several minutes for back
up to arrive, Skinner thought frantically of a way to delay these creeps.

A soft tap on his shoulder brought Skinner out of his thoughts with a start. He
spun around and drew down on a strangely familiar little man who had managed to
sneak up on him from behind. <Got to get back in the field more often, Walter.
You're getting careless.>

"Don't feel too badly," the man replied. "Sneaking up on people appears to be
one of my natural talents. Ask your friend, Agent Mulder," he added. "It drives
him stark raving mad."

Skinner opened his mouth in surprise. Had he spoken that comment out loud?
Jesus, he needed a real vacation. "Who are you?" Skinner finally got out in a
whisper.

"A friend," the little man answered. "Let's see if I can put my natural talents
to work. I simply cannot allow anything to happen to Fox."

Skinner glanced back over at the van. "You're a friend of Mulder's?"

"Just think of me as a guardian angel, even though I know Fox has thought of me
in a lot of other ways that I couldn't possibly mention -- at least not out
loud. I do tend to aggravate him on occasion and he can be quite vocal with his
opinions. Yes, quite vocal indeed."

Skinner wasn't sure who this person was, but he appeared to be willing to help.
And for some strange reason he trusted the little guy.

Red Sands Hotel
Dr. Simons' office
*******************

Jake stepped over an overturned chair just inside the doorway and stared at the
totally trashed office that spread out before him. "What in the hell happened
here?" he asked, turning to an equally stunned Scully whose expression plainly
reflected Jake's own reaction.

"I honestly don't know," she replied in a shocked tone. "Maybe he didn't tip
the maids effectively," she added with distraction.

Jake harrumphed with ironic amusement. Some of the kid's oddball humor must be
rubbing off on the dame. "Now, I could be wrong, but I'd say somebody was
definitely looking for something. What we have to find out is whether or not
they found what they were looking for."

"It certainly would be a lot easier if we knew *what* they were looking for and
if they found Dr. Simons as well. Mulder seemed to think that there was a
connection between Dr. Simons' security system and the recent murders. He also
seemed overly concerned with Dr. Simons' welfare."

Moorehouse wandered into the main computer room, then through an obscure side
door that led to another room, He stopped suddenly. Jake had been in many
security computer rooms -- hell, it was hard not to in his profession -- but
this particular one had more gadgets and gizmos than Mission Control at the
Cape. "Hey, Red, come on in here," he yelled. "You gotta see this."

Dana walked through the unmarked door and her chin to drop in wonder. This was
like something out of one of Mulder's Sci Fi movies. Maybe Mulder's jump in
logic wasn't that far off this time. From the look of the equipment in this
room, something exceedingly strange was going on here that, at the very least,
deserved further investigation.

She wandered through the maze of circuitry and electronic hardware and paused at
what appeared to be the crux of the system -- only there was nothing there.
"Looks like we're too late, Jake" she commented angrily. "Whatever was hooked
up here was the target and they've taken it, none to gently I might add. It
looks like the whole thing was ripped from its moorings. Whoever they were, they
must have been in a hurry."

Dana frowned, staring around the room, trying to piece together the clues to
form a coherent picture. "Something tells me my dear sweet partner has a few
theories that he's neglected to
share," she commented. The memory of her conversation with Dr. Jay replayed
itself in her mind, bringing with it possibilities she was reluctant to
consider. "Jake, I think we need to put out an APB on Scott Simons. Just say
it's for questioning. I don't want to scare him off."

"Hey, I can do that," Jake said as he pulled out his phone to make the request.

"Haven't you guys screwed up enough of Mr. Simons' stuff already?" a whiny
voiced complained.

Dana turned back toward the door. Standing on the other side was a young woman,
about her height but considerably more top-heavy. "And you are?" Dana asked.

"Marnie Wells, Mr. Simons' executive assistant," she replied. She put her hands
on her hips and glared at Dana. "It's not enough that you people pour in here
at the crack of dawn and trash the place, now you gotta come back and what -- do
it all over again? Didn't you find what you were looking for?"

"Ms. Wells, I don't know who you're talking about. I'm with the FBI, Agent Dana
Scully." She held up her badge for inspection. "And this is Detective Jake
Moorehouse with the Reno Police Department."

"Yeah, well, those other guys said they were FBI, too. But they sure didn't show
me a search warrant. You got a warrant?"

Dana shared an uneasy glance with Jake. This didn't sound good at all. "Ms.
Wells, I can assure you that we're not here to trash anything. We just came to
talk to Dr. Simons."

Simons' executive assistant glanced at her feet, not an easy task over all the
silicone on her chest. "I don't know where he is," she finally admitted. "I
haven't seen him since yesterday. He's missed two meetings already this
morning, and the guys upstairs are getting upset with me 'cause I don't know
where he is."

"You say the FBI trashed this place?" Moorehouse asked.

"Yeah, well, I don't know exactly 'cause I wasn't here. I came in and the place
was like this, so I was just about ready to call the cops when these guys in
black suits showed up. They said they were federal government and were
conducting an investigation. They asked a lot of questions about Mr. Simons and
the new security system he put in. They said that if I didn't interfere, they
wouldn't arrest me." She flipped her hair back out of her eyes. "You know,
that really kinda pissed me off since all I did was come to friggin' work. Then
they asked me who had appointments yesterday with Mr. Simons and I told them the
only damn appointment he had yesterday was with the FBI - didn't they already
know that? Then the bastards took my appointment book and left."

"I don't suppose they gave you any names, did they?" Dana asked.

Marnie snorted. "Do they ever? Arrogant assholes," she muttered. She looked
around at the mess of broken electronic equipment. "You need me for anything
else?" she asked belligerently.

"No, I don't think so," Dana replied.

"Good," she replied, turning to leave. "I don't get paid enough for this."

Dana looked back at the empty space where some important piece of electronic
equipment had once been. <Oh god, what if what Dr. Jay says is true, and these
people actually believed this Collective crap?> Then they would need Mulder to
access the Prototype, and she had an uneasy feeling that the missing piece of
equipment *was* the Prototype. A missing piece of equipment which they'd
probably just stolen. And if, as Dr. Jay said, security had been breached and
they knew about Mulder, they could just as easily believe that he carried that
information within his own mind. Dana had no doubts they would do their
damnedest to extract it. She didn't even want to think about what methods they
would try to employ to do that. "We've got to get back to the hospital," she
said, heading toward the door. "I think we have a more immediate problem than
finding Dr. Simons."

Jake hurried out after her. For a short dame, she could move pretty fast when
she wanted to. Something just set her off, but he damned well couldn't see it.
What was the connection between the casino murders, a missing casino exec,
stolen complicated security systems components, mysterious government pukes in
black suits, and Mulder? He wished this feisty broad would trust him enough to
give him the information he needed to follow her fucking logic. Guess for now
he'd just have to trust her instincts, provide backup, and wait for an
explanation. Chances are when he did get an explanation, he probably wouldn't
believe it anyway.

"You think these jerks would try and harm the kid?" he asked as he huffed along
beside her.

Dana smiled briefly at Jake's reference to "the kid." Mulder did seem to have
that effect on his friends -- a big naive, lanky kid who needed their affection
and protection. "Yes, I'm afraid they might," she admitted.

Sacred Heart Hospital
Service Alley
******************

Oh, so much for being an observer, Dr. Jay muttered to himself as he strolled
down the sidewalk in the general direction of the van. There were several
people making their way from the parking garage to the hospital and Dr. Jay was
just trying to blend in. He hoped that as long as he didn't do anything
unusual, he wouldn't be noticed until it was too late.

Damn, he resigned himself to yet another reprimand when this whole thing was
over. He still hadn't finished reimbursing his superiors for the absconded
medical equipment that he'd "borrowed"' from his last escapade involving the
forever imperiled Fox Mulder.

Perhaps he should talk Fox into retaining the consciousness. That would serve
those so and so's right, he thought with a certain amount of unfamiliar glee.
Yes, that's what it was -- unadulterated glee. Let's see how successful those
bureaucratic buttwipes <Lord, how I love this earthy American slang. It's just
so delightfully descriptive> could be at stifling his young impetuous friend.
Shatz... he never liked being a bloody observer anyway and there was never a
lack of action with Fox in the vicinity, even when he was unconscious.

Come on, Walter, what in the hell are you waiting for? Skinner asked himself
for the umpteenth time. There were at least six men at the door who were
probably armed to the teeth. All he had was his service pistol and the element
of surprise. Add to that the chance that Mulder might get caught in the
crossfire and he convinced himself that there was indeed a good reason for
waiting. If an opening didn't come soon, he'd have to take his chances. He was
running out of time. They'd have Mulder loaded into the van within the next
couple of minutes and he'd take a chance on losing him if he didn't act soon.

Turning to inquire if his improvised partner had any ideas on how to handle the
situation, he noticed that the little man had virtually disappeared. Where in
the hell did he go? Just as the thought had crossed his mind, a loud pop
reverberated through the still air and the fire hydrant on the corner exploded,
sending a wall of pressurized water spewing into the air with a thunderous roar
that sent the men in the alley diving for cover. Skinner moved in closer, unseen
behind the manmade waterfall. <Ahhh... all their nice, expensive black suits
were all wet. What a shame.>

He crouched in front of the van with his weapon drawn. Glancing down, he
noticed that the van now sported four flat tires as well as a collection of
unidentifiable wires hanging from the front bumper. What the hell? He didn't
even see the little guy leave. This was carrying stealth to extremes. Wonder
if he would consider working for the FBI?

Dr. Jay stepped back into the shadows and "observed." Could he help it if the
fire hydrant picked that very moment to malfunction? And could he be held
responsible for the inferior manufacturing materials that allowed those tires to
explode under pressure? Of course not. And certainly, he had *no* idea why
those infernal wires chose to break at exactly at the same time. Kismet. It
could happen.

Technically he hadn't directly interfered with the situation this time, t
herefore he couldn't be held accountable for the outcome. Now, if his new
acquaintance, Walter here, could hold up his end
until help arrived, dear Fox had a reasonably good chance of coming out of this
latest development with nothing more than a killer headache and an upset
stomach, something with which he seemed to be plagued anyway.

***

"Christ Almighty, Red!!" Jake yelled as the car whipped around a corner on
nearly two wheels. "We're only two or three minutes away. Slow down!" he
panted, trying to get his stomach out of his throat and back to where it
belonged.

"Listen, I've been in this game long enough to know that two or three minutes
could make the difference between my child being spoiled by a doting father and
my being a grieving widow, so shut up Jake and hold on tight because I am *not*
going to let them take him from me now."

"Hey!" Jake screamed over the squealing sound of screeching tires as she slid
around another corner. "If I'm gonna die in a damn car crash, I figure you owe
me a fucking explanation of what
the hell's goin' on here."

Dana skidded the car to a stop in front of the Emergency Room entrance, leaping
from her seat before the vehicle had even come to a complete stop. Only the
action wasn't here -- it was around the corner.

Obeying her instinctive reflexes, she drew her weapon when she saw the broken
hydrant, the white van with its black ops men surrounding it, and Skinner's
familiar balding dome as he stayed crouched, unseen, to the front of the van.
Her eyes were drawn to the supine figure strapped tightly to the temporarily
abandoned gurney in the center of the melee. "Fox," she sighed out loud, taking
in the sight of him. The sheet, drenched from the cascading water, clung
transparently to his slick, naked body. At least he appeared unconscious, so he
wouldn't have to deal with yet another new humiliation.

Jake flanked her on the right and Skinner was ahead of her and to her left. The
A.D. heard her arrive but unfortunately so did the men in the alley.

Realizing that the van was unusable and their plans compromised, the bastards in
black responded to the impending threat by opening fire. They had not expected
a confrontation. Jake and Dana took cover behind a nearby parked car.

Jake raised his gun to return the barrage but felt small, steely fingers clamp
down on his wrist, forcing the weapon to his side. Moorehouse shot her a
questioning look. "Mulder's in the open, unprotected, and vulnerable," she
replied. "If we engage in a firefight, there's a fairly good chance that he'll
be hit. I've come too far and invested too much to have my new husband end up
as a casualty of friendly fire."

Jake nodded in reluctant agreement and though he trained his sights back on
their adversaries, he did not return fire.

Dana noticed that Skinner also held his weapon in check. The same concerns must
have passed through his mind as well, and she could tell he was waiting for an
opportunity to retaliate.

It took several seconds before the men in the alley realized that no one was
shooting back. Then it occurred to them why. The biggest man, the one who
appeared to be giving the orders, spun suddenly, spraying his companions with
automatic gunfire while simultaneously pulling a 9mm from his waistband. He
knew he could never escape with five other people in tow, but alone -- and with
a hostage -- he might be able to save himself. An awful lot of people seemed to
have a vested interest in this guy. Let's see just how fucking important he
really is to them.

Leveling his weapon at Mulder's head, he yanked the oxygen mask from the agent's
face, undid the straps, and pulled him up into a modified fireman's carry,
making certain that anybody watching would see that he'd shoved the barrel of
his pistol into his hostage's mouth. If they were going to take him down, they
would have to risking taking this one with him. He didn't think they were
prepared to do that.

Dana shuddered. <Oh god... Oh god, no... Please no.> Her small hand tightened
on the useless weapon by her side just as a larger invisible hand squeezed the
life from her heart. She was helpless. Once again his life or death would be
decided by another's hand and all she could do was stand by and watch, powerless
to do anything to save him. Frustration and rage pounded at her temples with a
staccato rythmn that got louder with every second.

"Back away!" the man screamed. "Back away or I'll splatter his brains all over
the pavement! Back off!!" he repeated. "You!" he yelled again, gesturing
toward Scully.

Dana started in surprise.

"Yeah, you bitch. Drop the gun and get over there and start the car. I know
you have the keys. Get in the goddamn car, start it, and get the hell out."

She placed her weapon carefully on the hood of the car she'd used as cover and
slowly reached into her pocket to retrieve the keys she'd dropped there earlier.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jake asked in a harsh whisper.

"Shut up, Moorehouse," she hissed.

The man moved toward them and Dana backed away from her cover.

"No!" Jake exclaimed fervently. "Red! You can't do this." He pointed to
Mulder's still frame draped over the man's shoulders like a hunter's kill. "*He*
wouldn't want you to do this."

Moorehouse cringed as she directed a furious glare at him. "*He* would respect
me enough to let me make my own decisions," she replied with a shaking, angry
voice.

Dana moved toward the waiting car, vaguely aware of the arrival of police cars
and a TV news crew. Damn it!! The more people that were involved in this, the
more chances there were of someone making a fatal mistake. She blocked them out
of her mind and narrowed her attention to the man who would take away her life,
her love, and her future. He was barely within a foot of her now. His eyes
were dark and cruel... no hint of human kindness or mercy escaped their
bottomless depths. Large hands -- one large, uncaring hand convulsed nervously
around the gun, bruising and cutting her partner's lips with each jerking
movement.

Those gorgeous, generous lips. Lips that had loved her, smiled, grinned, and
pouted -- lips that had sent her to heaven and caressed her with a feather
touch... lips, now tinged with blue. <Blue?> She forced her gaze away from his
mouth to his fingertips, noting that they also held a faint bluish cast.
Desperation settled into the pit of her stomach. Whatever drug they'd used had
depressed his involuntary bodily functions to such a degree that she realized
with horror that the oxygen mask wasn't a precaution but a necessity. He wasn't
getting enough oxygen to survive for much longer.

"Please, let him go," she heard herself pleading shamelessly. Dana swallowed
her pride. She would gladly get down on her hands and knees and beg if that's
what it would take to free him.

The man laughed with an evil devoid of compassion or humanity. In his voice she
heard the echoes of emptiness in his soul. Whatever had made this man human had
died long ago.

"What? And cancel my insurance policy?" he growled sarcastically.

"Take me," she offered.

"Why would I want to do that? You can't give them what they want, but he can."

"Then you can't kill him," she said. "You wouldn't have anything to trade for
your life."

"Listen, bitch. This was fucked up so badly that I know I'm not gonna be
allowed to walk away. He might buy me some time, but that's all. If I get out
of here with him, great. If I have to blow his fucking brains out, it won't
matter anyway -- we're both dead. If they can't have him, nobody else will
either. They're fucking jealous that way. Now start the goddamn engine and get
out or I'll just save everyone the trouble right now."

Dana opened the car door and got inside. She fumbled getting the key into the
ignition, trying to do it by feel without taking her eyes off the man and his
precious cargo as they moved to stand beside the car.

Apparently she wasn't moving fast enough for him. "Start the car!" he screamed.
The veins in his neck and forehead bulged as his trigger finger began to twitch.

"Okay, okay... please don't," she entreated him while turning the key in the
ignition. The car rumbled to life just as a camera strobe accidentally flashed
in the crowd. Scully turned in horror as the man's finger squeezed the trigger.
"Noooooooo," she cried out as she leaned back and kicked at his knee cap with
all her might.

The gun fell from Mulder's mouth as the big man went down. It hadn't fired.
The goddamn piece of shit hadn't fired. Dropping Mulder from his shoulders, he
pulled the weapon up to clear it but not before Scully pulled her own little
back up revolver from her ankle holster and created a new hole in the man's
forehead.

Seconds later, soothing voices and helping hands guided her to her husband. She
numbly watched as the paramedics replaced the nasal canula and started an IV.
She only allowed herself to be led away when Skinner had assured her that Mulder
would be all right.

Sacred Heart Hospital
Room 42A
**************

Mulder slept peacefully as the drugs worked their way out of his system.
Although there were agents posted at his door, Dana could still feel the
remnants of fear clutch at the edges of her mind. Fear that even now, they
could still get to him.

She leaned up against the wall outside his room, suddenly weary to the bone.
When had this case become more than just a murder case? What did those peoples'
deaths have to do with what she assumed was the consortium's diabolical interest
in her partner? What had happened to Dr. Simons? She suspected that Mulder
knew some of the answers, or thought he did. It was what he didn't know that
weighed heavily on her mind and conscience right now.

How much of what Dr. Jay had told her should she dare tell him? She still
wasn't sure that she believed any of it. Then there was the chip. Then there
was... the miracle, for lack of a better word. The perp's gun hadn't misfired.
It wasn't jammed and a round had been chambered. Ballistics reported that the
weapon had been in perfect working condition, yet it hadn't fired.

The shock of what had happened finally caught up with her. Tears flowed
silently down her cheeks, dripping haphazardly onto her blouse.

"Now is a time for joy, my dear," a soft and tender voice advised her. "Save
your tears for another day."

"Where have you been?" she growled looking up at the loving face of the little
man who she'd grown to consider as a friend. "How did you get in here?" She
observed the bandage wrapped around his index finger. "And what happened to your
finger?"

"I am obviously not indestructible and I simply can't carry 'green goo' with me
everywhere I go, can I? I... uh... pinched it. Yes, that's it. It got
slightly smashed."

"How?" she asked warily.

"Dear lady, must I divest myself of all my mysteries?"

"Do you want me to take a look at it?" Dana inquired with concern.

Dr. Jay grinned. "I don't believe that will be necessary. However, I shall
promise to endeavor to keep my digits out of dangerous places if you will
promise to keep Fox out of trouble." Truth was, though, he had no idea how to
explain to her why there was an imprint of a 9mm firing pin imbedded into his
fingertip. Allowing her to examine it would only cause questions he didn't want
to answer.

Mulder opened his mouth to speak and winced at the sharp pain that accompanied
the effort. Oh Jesus, his mouth hurt like hell -- like he'd been doing
something immoral or illegal with it. He sincerely hoped he hadn't or Dana
would make sure other more important body parts paid the price for his
stupidity. <Ouch!>

He felt sick. It wasn't the nauseous "morning thing" as Dana affectionately
called it. He could live with that -- had lived with it for several weeks. No,
what he was experiencing now was more of a gut wrenching, stomach cramping,
continual convulsion that threatened to hurl his intestines out by way of his
nose and mouth. Whatever was happening here made the "morning thing" seem like
nothing more than a nasty bout of hiccups.

Mulder groaned a warning only seconds before the bitter taste of bile burned its
way through his throat and nose. How did he get on his back? He didn't remember
rolling over. He didn't think he could have if he wanted to. <Just great.
Being flat on your back is not the position of choice when you're about to puke
your brains out.>

Something in the back of his mind instructed him to roll over but he discovered
rather quickly that he hadn't the strength to comply. Before he could call for
someone to let them know that he was in distress, it was too late. It wouldn't
have mattered anyway. The voices had left some time ago and he sensed he was
alone.

"Call me when he awakens," Dr. Jay instructed Dana. "I will be resting at this
number," he said, handing her a slip of paper with a phone number hastily
scribbled on one corner.

"Won't you know when he wakes up?" she asked.

"Ordinarily, dear lady, I probably would. However, my link with him lately has
been somewhat unreliable. You, of course, would know the reason for that, if
you would only choose to believe in what you know to be true."

"Believe in what?" a rich baritone startled her from behind.

Dana turned around to see Skinner advancing on them, victoriously waving a
report in the air in front of him like a battle flag.

"Angels," Dana sighed.

"Well, I've done my bit of divine intervention," Skinner said with a smug grin
as he placed the report in her hand.

"Are you trying to tell me you're God, sir?" she asked with a grin. She scanned
the report he'd handed her. "They said this toxilogical screen wouldn't be done
until later this afternoon. Maybe you *are* god," Dana remarked, truly
impressed.

Jake exited the elevator just in time to catch the line about Skinner being God.
"Yeah, just call him 'Saint Skinner,'" Moorehouse chuckled. "'Patron Saint of
the Bureaucratically Downtrodden,'" he added loudly.

Raising her hand to her mouth, Scully attempted to hide her smile. "How did you
ever manage to get this report so quickly?" she inquired with a quizzical yet
grateful expression.

Skinner shifted his weight uncomfortably. "I visited the lab and personally
expedited the paperwork," he said.

"What he means," Jake snorted, "is that he harassed the poor bastards to death
and threatened them with everything from an IRS audit to imprisonment for
obstructing justice if they didn't get the damn thing done in record time."

Dana shifted her gaze back to Skinner and raised one eyebrow in surprise. She
almost allowed herself a giggle when she noticed the telltale pinkish tinge
coloring the A.D.'s cheeks and the top of his balding head. She hadn't thought
it was possible but the man was actually blushing.

"I was just doing my job. The Bureau takes care of its own," he mumbled
gruffly.

"Yes, I'm sure we do," she replied, turning her attention back to the report in
question.

"In a pig's eye," Jake retorted.

Skinner's intimidating glare seemed to impress Jake about as much as it had ever
impressed Mulder -- which wasn't much. "Nice try, Kojak," Jake teased as he
sauntered down the hall toward Mulder's room.

"Well?" Skinner asked. "I have to admit that I read it, I just didn't understand
it. What does it mean in English?"

"I'm not quite sure," she mumbled. Dana continued to study the information with
a perplexed expression that bordered on concern. She looked up suddenly,
preparing to bombard Dr. Jay with questions, only to discover that her friend
had once more managed to disappear without her notice. <How does he do that?>

"Did you see where he went, sir?" she asked.

Skinner scanned the hallway in both directions and shrugged. "Who was that
guy?"

"A friend," she replied affectionately. "And perhaps even a possible relative,"
she added cryptically.

Skinner gestured at the report. "So is there a problem?"

"There could be," she replied.

"What do you mean? What did they shoot him up with and how long will it take to
wear off?"

"Well, that's part of the problem, sir," she explained in a worried tone. "The
analysis is incomplete. It seems the drug, for lack of a better term, is unlike
anything they've encountered before and closest they could come to identifying
it is that it appears to be an analog of a type of poison excreted by some
species of poisonous toads. There are also remnants of an unknown substance
with powerful narcotic properties." She folded the report and put it in her
purse. "I've got to get this to the Lone Gunman," she mumbled under her breath,
wondering exactly where they were and what trouble they were getting into here.
Surely nothing worse than what she and Mulder had managed to step in.

Skinner tilted his head to one side, trying to catch that last phrase. "What was
that?"

"Nothing, just thinking out loud," she said.

Jake showed his badge to the agents outside Mulder's room and pushed open the
heavy door. This room always gave him the creeps. Originally, it had been a
special room designed to keep undesirables like psychotic and criminal patients
*in.* It had never occurred to him before that it would be just as effective at
keeping undesirables out which, in this case, happened to be kidnappers and
potential assassins. There were no windows and only one heavy door.

Something was wrong. He knew it right away. The overpowering stench of sour
bile and vomit hit him full in the face and he nearly lost his lunch.

Pathetic gurgling and gagging sounds immediately drew his attention to the
figure on the bed. <Oh shit!! Oh, holy fucking shit!!> How in the hell did his
friend end up on his back and where was the goddamn mother fucking nurse? He
knew Scully made it a point to leave Mulder on his side and made it more than
clear to the entire nursing staff that he wasn't to be left alone.

Jake ran to the bed. Taking a corner of the sheet into his hand, he cleared as
much of the foul, stinking mess as he could from Mulder's nose and mouth and
rolled him onto his side. Sure, Jake was a damn good detective, not a doctor,
but even he knew that aspirating this kind of shit could kill the kid or at the
very least, cause some major complications. Satisfied that he'd done all that he
could, the big man ran back to the door and charged into the hallway.

"Sir..." Dana raised her eyes from the report to meet her boss's concerned gaze.
"Is the
government involved in developing experimental pharmaceuticals?"

Skinner shook his head slowly. Leave it to Scully to ask the obvious. "I
honestly don't know, Scully," he answered truthfully. "But I wouldn't rule out
the possibility."

"This chemical compound seems to be a mixture of several different substances,
both man-made and organic, which is not going to bode well for Mulder," she
sighed.

"Why?" Skinner asked.

Dana thought for a moment, then tried to explain. "Well, have you ever gone to
a party and 'mixed your poisons'?"

"Yes, I'll have to admit I have been guilty of that particular sin on occasion,"
he grinned slightly.

"How did you feel the next morning?" she asked.

"Like shit," he answered with dawning realization.

"Right -- and whatever this substance is, the components are hundreds of times
more potent than ordinary hard liquor with equally high physically addictive
properties."

"In other words..." Skinner hesitated.

"When this stuff starts to work its way out of his body, the resulting wi
thdrawal is going to be explosive and excessively violent, and the only c
onsolation is that it will probably be relatively brief in duration. At least I
hope so. In any case, sir, I think I'm going to need some back up on this case
because I don't want him pushing himself, and he will."

"I would be more than pleased to assist you, Agent Scully," Skinner replied. It
would be exhilarating to be actively involved in a case for a change instead of
pushing papers around on his desk. "That is, of course, until Agent Mulder has
recovered from this latest ordeal," he added.

Mulder wouldn't like this. He wouldn't like this at all. Mulder could be one
extremely territorial bastard. Not being one to let up on a case, he was even
less likely to admit to needing help or accept the fact that he was still both
mentally and physically taxed. Too bad, Skinner thought, he'll just have to
live with it. I *am* the boss.

Knowing Mulder, he'd be pestering the doctor to let him out of here as soon as
he woke up. He hoped they kept him here for a while. If the man Mulder once
referred to as Cancerman was involved in this, and Skinner's instincts told him
that he was, it would ease his mind considerably to be able to keep Mulder under
lock and key and out of harm's way until he could get in touch with his contacts
and get a handle of what the hell was going down. Meanwhile, he'd just have to
work with "Feds are Assholes" Moorehouse.

As if on cue, Jake's voice thundered through the hall with an urgency that
demanded immediate attention. "RED!!!" he bellowed. "RED, GET THE HELL DOWN
HERE NOW!!! SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH THE KID, HE'S PUKING ALL OVER THE PLACE. HE
WAS ON HIS BACK! WHO IN THE HELL LEFT HIM ON HIS BACK? AND THE GODDAMN NURSE IS
NOWHERE IN SIGHT AND HE'S TURNING FUCKING BLUE AGAIN. OH, SHIT!"

***********************************************

CHAPTER 16

Sacred Heart Hospital
Room 42A
**********************

Dana pushed past Jake's bulk and barreled into the room followed by Skinner.
Mulder's doctor and several nurses, alerted by the sound of Jake's voice, came
running in close behind. A crowd of white lab coats surrounded the bed, blocking
the view so Skinner and Moorehouse stepped back out of the way, leaned on the
far wall, and waited.

A half hour later, the last of the white coats left the room. Mulder had been
sufficiently washed, medicated, and his sheets changed. A new IV dangled into
his right wrist, pumping a collection of anti-spasmodics and sedatives into his
veins like a fuel pump at the local gas station.

Skinner watched as Dana sat in near exhaustion in the chair by the bed, a
lternately holding Mulder's hand and running her fingers through his hair. The
gentle actions belied what she was feeling. She was furious. He could tell.

"Where is Sister Margaret?" she asked the last remaining nurse. "I left her
here to watch him. I want to know where in the hell she was when this was
happening," she finished angrily.

The nurse looked puzzled. "Sister Margaret? There's no Sister Margaret
assigned to this hospital," she replied. "I should know. I've been here for the
last ten years."

"Oh my God..." Scully slumped forward and placed her head in her hands. A light
brush of fingertip whispered against her shoulder.

"It's not your fault, Red," Jake whispered. "You had no way of knowing. Nobody
did."

"I should have known," she insisted. "Trust no one, that's the bottom line, and
I blew it."

Jake exchanged glances with Skinner over her slumped shoulders. "Look, you need
to take a snooze," he said. "We still have a case to solve and the sooner we
get to the bottom of this, the sooner Mulder will be out of danger from these
sewer slugs. You can't do that if you're dead on your feet."

"I agree," Skinner added. "I've had Mulder's doctor hand pick three nurses to
watch him. They've been given photo IDs and the agents at his door have been
briefed on who can and can't enter the room. He should be safe enough for now.
You've been through hell today and need the rest, especially in your present
condition. And don't look at me like that, Agent Scully. You know I'm telling
you the truth."

She sighed in resignation. He was right. They both were. This kind of stress
was not healthy for their unborn child. She needed to rest, to relax, even if
it was only a nap. But she was just so damned angry.

"Yes, sir," she finally agreed. "I'll take an hour or two to wind down, then I'd
like to meet you at the Red Sands. And Jake, I want you to get background
information on all employees who would have been working the 10pm to 6am shift
at the Red Sands. Mulder had a hunch that Dr. Simons' Security system had
something to do with targeting the victims. From what we saw of the remains of
Dr. Simon's office, I'm forced to agree with him."

She got up from Mulder's side and began pacing the floor like a caged tigress.
She'd rest, but first she needed to work off her anger. These underhanded,
double-dealing, ultra secret government asswipes had tried to take away her
husband. Goddamn it, she was pissed and come hell or high water, she was going
to get to the bottom of this whole thing one way or another. What had been a
simple murder case was now something much more -- it was personal. Someone was
going to eat shit and die. But they had to catch that someone first.

"Targeting the victims?" Skinner asked. "You mean these people were all marked
for murder by a casino security system?"

"As strange as it seems, sir, it appears that's what happened," Scully replied.
"Mulder noticed that the security cameras at the Red Sands did something that
none of the other casinos did. When the system spotted a cheater, it zoomed in
on them automatically, followed their every movement until they left the casino.
And shortly after each one of the victims left the Red Sands, they were killed.
Mulder and I reviewed the security logs. The cameras that followed these people
were under the control of Dr. Simons' new high-tech security computer - no human
guards were involved."

"Do you know what you're saying, Agent Scully?" Skinner asked quietly. "You're
talking about a thinking computer - artificial intelligence. Something that
sophisticated doesn't exist."

"As far as we know," she commented. "And here's something else to consider. I
spoke with Jennifer Lyons, the young woman Mulder tackled outside the Red Sands
this morning. She's still pretty shaken up. She freely admitted to cheating
the house at roulette, which places her squarely within our victim profile.
According to Ms. Lyons, the injuries Mulder suffered on his leg were the result
of a thin bolt of light that exploded from one of the neon signs. What she said
she saw was for all intents and purposes a concentrated beam of light that
struck exactly where she would have been standing had Mulder not pushed her out
of the way."

"Are you inferring that Agent Mulder was hit by a laser that was purposely aimed
at Ms. Lyons?" Personally, Skinner thought that her explanation was highly
unlikely. However, knowing what he did about the government that employed him,
about the X Files in general, and Mulder and Scully in particular, he'd learned
not to rule out anything, even if it did sound absurd.

Dana hesitated, frustration plainly etched upon her face. "Sir, I know this
sounds a little far-fetched, but I've witnessed the use of a laser in the
operating room and I've seen the type of wound it leaves behind. The hole in
Mulder's leg was clean and precise, with minimal bleeding. It resembled a wound
made by a concentrated pulse of light. And I'm willing to bet that the tissues
around the wound contain trace amounts of neon gas, just like the tissue I found
in Mr. Harris' body.

"Now, I realize there's no way in hell that an ordinary security system could
generate enough power to produce that kind of energy," she continued. "I'm the
first to admit that I'm not exactly sure about what we're dealing with here.
Even with 15,000 volts running through the tubing, everyday, run of the mill,
neon lights couldn't do what has obviously been done, nor could our murder
victims have perished from the unlikely methods used to take their lives." Dana
shifted her weight and leaned her tired body against the wall, her spurt of
angry energy exhausted. "I am naturally reluctant to except one of Mulder's
characteristically bizarre theories, but lack of a more conventional explanation
is making the fantastic seem more plausible by the minute."

She paused, considering just how much she could trust her boss and Moorehouse.
Both men looked on patiently as she struggled to come to a difficult decision.
Hell, you've gotta trust someone sometime. They'd stuck with her this far
without telling her she'd gone off the deep end.

"And there's something else Mulder mentioned," she began with a cautious glance
at Skinner. "Have you ever heard of something called the Kinsington Project?"

Moorehouse shrugged his shoulders and indicated that he had not. Skinner, on the
other hand, paled visibly, a clear sign that he indeed had more than a passing
knowledge of the project's existence.

Pondering the question silently for several seconds, Skinner finally asked in a
quiet, tense voice, "Mulder knows about the Kingsington Project?" Scully nodded
in reply.

Somehow Skinner knew this information didn't come from any of Scully's sources,
so it had to be from someone Mulder knew. It often amazed him how his
resourceful and willful agent became privy to such sensitive and forbidden
information.

"Does he believe that the project is somehow involved in this case?" Another
nod. This must be the source of the trouble Mulder was in. If he was in the
process of stepping on toes again, especially the powerful toes he appeared to
be crunching at the moment, no wonder they were striking back.

Given the particulars of the case, Skinner could understand how Mulder could
come to such a conclusion. However, he knew there had to be more to it than
Mulder's unusual speculations to permit Scully to even consider the outlandish
possibility that Mulder had proposed. There was something else at work here,
something much bigger than a serial killer on a murder spree. He wasn't a big
believer in vibes, but he was getting enough bad ones at the moment about this
whole situation to make him consider changing his mind.

"He did mention it as a possibility, although I wasn't sure there was any merit
to his speculation." She stared at her boss. "So the project actually exists?"

Skinner fidgeted uncomfortably. Lying at this point would be fruitless and she
would see through it anyway. Mulder must be rubbing off on her. "Yes, it does
exist. How Mulder found out about it, though, is beyond me," he added with
thinly veiled admiration. Skinner stared at the petite agent. Her sudden
belief in hidden government involvement had to be more than just a random theory
proposed by her partner. "There's more to this case than just the search for a
killer, isn't
there, Scully?" he asked.

She considered the two men before her once more and sighed heavily. "I don't
know if you'll believe me if I tell you. I'm not even certain that I believe it
myself, but I have recently been made aware of certain information that would
explain a lot of unsolved mysteries surrounding my husband," she said, her voice
shaking with emotion. "Haven't you ever wondered why they haven't disposed of
him, why he is the way he is? And why there is such a scramble to take him away
now? I have been told that Mulder has become the crux of a major struggle for
power between several factions of shadow people simply because of who he is and
the potential of what he could do if he knew how special he really is."

Dana briefly explained to Skinner and Moorehouse what Dr. Jay had told her,
being careful to keep his identity confidential. Amazingly enough, both men
appeared to accept the story more readily than she had. The expected looks of
disbelief and skeptism never came and she found herself sagging with relief.

But even though she was relieved that they'd believed her, a small suspicion
nagged at her brain. What did Skinner know that would make him believe so
readily? Had he suspected such a scenario from the start? And did it really
matter? At the moment, she didn't care. It was enough that she wasn't alone
with this and that her boss hadn't dismissed her as being out of hand. He'd
obviously seen his share of extreme possibilities and wasn't ready to dismiss
this one.

Skinner cleared his throat. "Whether or not we believe is not singularly
important," he said, seeming to read her thoughts. "What is important is that
they believe and are more than willing to act on those beliefs. If what you say
is true and they get this Collective consciousness from Mulder, it could be the
beginning of Armageddon. With these people power and dominance is everything.
No one would be safe. No one."

Elsewhere
*******************

A dull gray smoke ring slowly curled its way toward the ceiling while its owner
contemplated his deteriorating position within the consortium.

True, the bumbling fools who'd attempted this fiasco of a mission hadn't been
his men, but that wouldn't matter in the end. He had been very skillfully
maneuvered into giving the order. Therefore, the responsibility for this
disaster was ultimately his. And the fact that it had been a disaster was
beyond debate.

How very convenient for his so-called "associates" to have a flunky on whom they
could place all the blame. He was not keen on being the scapegoat. It was not
a position with which he was
familiar and he was absolutely certain that he didn't like the feeling. An
unwelcome visit was sure to follow. It was inevitable.

He crushed the cigarette out, only half-smoked. It was time for action, and he
made a conscious decision to face this new development with an offensive
posture. It was, after all, the best defense and the best way to insure his
continued survival.

Sacred Heart Medical Center
Room 42A
***********************

A soft baritone voice echoed faintly through Fox Mulder's head. Someone was
speaking to him in a low, soothing tone. He knew the voice but couldn't yet
make out the words.

His senses registered a soft, gentle squeeze that pressed into his arm. It was
one small gesture of comfort, but it was amazing how it could make him feel so
safe. What surprised him even more was that when he finally recognized the
voice, he realized it belonged to A.D. Skinner.

This was a side of his boss that he'd rarely witnessed and one that he'd often
forgotten even existed. No doubt Skinner purposely set out to perpetuate the
appearance of cold, by the book detachment. Kindness and compassion would be
considered a weakness by his colleagues -- and weakness was something he dared
not show if he was to maintain his position of authority. But right here, right
now, Mulder was grateful for this small display of affection and concern that
Skinner allowed himself to give. It was something he needed, even craved, that
Skinner had instinctively provided.

Mulder felt lost within his own mind. He was struggling to maintain his own
identity among thoughts, ideas, memories, feelings, and advanced knowledge that
he knew were not his own. Skinner's calming voice and touch brought Mulder back
to himself.

The confusing thoughts within his mind suddenly cleared, and Mulder realized
what was happening to him. He wasn't losing his mind. He was in touch with
another consciousness -- a vast, ancient, incredibly intelligent mind that
referred to itself as the Collective.

With the help of the Collective, Mulder remembered what was done to him --
*everything* that had been done to him, even before his birth. He knew now why
he was different, but that wasn't all. The secrets of the universe unfolded
before him like the first flower of Spring reaching for the warmth of the sun.

Mulder no longer feared for his sanity. In fact, he wasn't even afraid of this
strange communion, an alien mind within his own. He knew that his mind
possessed the resiliency and strength of will to commune with this consciousness
without his own identity being completely assimilated by it.

The Collective's knowledge poured into him, image after image, thought after
thought. Cancerman, his father, the consortium, the Others, even knowledge of
the Collective itself. He knew now how a once noble cause had degenerated into
something dark, evil, and vile.

He was in danger. They would use this knowledge that he now possessed to
dominate and destroy. They would use him to tap its awesome power if he fell
into their hands before he could return what had accidentally become a part of
him. This could not be allowed to happen even if it meant forfeiting his own
life. But it was so unfair. He'd just found happiness and acceptance in the
arms and heart of a woman who truly loved him, and now he would quite probably
be forced to sacrifice himself for a greater cause. Shit! Sometimes being the
good guy really sucked in a big way.

<Wait a minute...What the hell are you thinking? Since when did you ever go
down this meekly? Stop it, Mulder!> He berated himself up one side and down
the other. <There are other people to consider here, not just you. You have a
wife and a child... well, almost. Moron!! You can't afford to think this way
and just accept a fate that in all probability was forced on you, as usual.> He
kicked himself mentally. For a fairly intelligent human being he could be
incredibly stupid. <How could you be so damn naive? You're 35 years old with a
degree from Oxford, for crissakes, and you're still intent on slaying dragons.
Where in the hell do you think you are -- fucking Camelot!??>

Skinner looked up from the chair he'd pushed over along side Mulder's bed. He
wasn't medically inclined, but it didn't take a genius to notice the monitor's
change in rhythm from a slow steady beat to an erratic crescendo of quickening
blips. Momentarily alarmed, he leaned over the young man, taking in his rapid
eye movements that flickered behind the thickly lashed lids. "Must be one hell
of a dream, Mulder," he mumbled softly before lowering himself back down into
the straight backed chair.

<Damn it to hell!> Mulder fumed. He'd lost enough for one lifetime. This time
he wasn't going to lose. This time they'd just have to find someone else to
shaft because as far as he could tell, martyrdom did not hold a prominent place
in his immediate plans. Maybe there was a time when he could have accepted that
role and been satisfied that he'd done something useful with his miserable life
even if it had meant its ending. But that was long ago and things had changed.
Now -- now it wasn't an option and never would be again since Dana had become
such an intricate and inseparate part of him. He could no longer imagine not
being with her even in death.

Then again, if he failed and they succeeded in ripping the Prototype's co
nsciousness from him, all that he loved would perish. If he wasn't in the
equation, that wouldn't happen and Dana and his world would be safe.

He hated no win scenarios.

But he knew he wanted to live, the desire burning within his spirit so fiercely
that it dwarfed all else, save the love and passion that he felt for his wife
and family. His future was here with them and those goddamn, motherfucking
cocksuckers were not going to deprive him and those he loved of what they
deserved. There had to be a way out of this mess and goddamn it, he intended to
find it.

He would have to find these assholes and for once, make them deal with him on
his terms. Locating Dr. Simons would definitely be a step in the right
direction. Mulder had felt Simons' mind skirting the edges of the Prototype's
collective memory. He knew now that the man was far from being just a director
of security at the Red Sands. He had information, he'd seen things, and then
he'd made the fatal mistake of either getting a conscience or getting greedy and
had struck out on his own. Nope... Simons would not be easy to find, especially
since Mulder's communion with this thing was far from perfect.

Images continued to flash through his brain at a dizzying rate. Some things he
understood -- most things he didn't. The alienness of the sensations were often
more than his poor human brain could handle and Mulder found himself likening
his predicament to trying to run a program made for 16 meg on a machine that
only had the capacity for 8. You could make it work, but it was slow, full of
errors, and crashed a lot. <Wonderful> he mused. <Now I can tell Dana what the
rest of the world already knew -- Fox Mulder is 8 meg short.>

Unfortunately, his communion with the Collective wasn't without physical
side-effects. A gargantuan migraine threatened to implode his skull into its own
little black hole. He moaned out loud as the invisible vise tightened around
his head.

Skinner jumped in his chair at the sound, his body tensing in alarm as once
again the monitors went a little haywire. He glanced at the automatic BP cuff
as it tightened around Mulder's arm and decided that the reading was a lot more
elevated than it should have been. He knew what his was last week when his
doctor growled at him and this was more than a little above that. Coupled with
the sudden grimace that appeared on Mulder's face, Skinner decided it was time
to seek medical assistance. Mulder was in pain. He bolted out into the hallway
and abducted the first doctor that appeared. Lucky for him, it was the right
one.

The conspiracy the Collective's consciousness laid out before him was much more
widespread
than even he could have imagined, its evil eating away at humanity like a
cancer, spiraling out of control. Mulder was sick and tired of the lies,
subterfuge, coverups, and betrayals. The experiments, the tortures, the
murders of innocent men, women, and children, sanctified and performed with and
by the very individuals who'd sworn by their honor to protect and serve them.
<Why was this allowed to continue?!?> he thought, the taste of anger bitter in
his mouth.

Unexpectedly, they answered him. <We are bound by our own set of moral codes and
obligations not to interfere with the affairs of other beings.> The voices were
many but spoke as one and
Mulder found himself teetering on a thin thread of communication as fragile as
the silk of a spider's web.

<Deja Vu... Maybe I am losing my marbles. Go with it. You interfered with me>
he replied to the disembodied voices in his head. <I saw it in your memories.>

<Yes, we did. With you an exception was made. We made an error in our p
redictions concerning your world's fate and we will never allow ourselves to
direct the natural progression of events, good or bad, again.>

<*You* made a mistake? I was that much of a disappointment...> he pondered.

<No, of course not. You have become what we expected and more than what we had
hoped. This unlikely conversation is proof of that. We regret the interference
because if we had not meddled, we would have been useless to the Others since
you would not have been able to link with us. Because we sought to improve your
world, you and our collective memories, as well as the fate of your world, are
endangered. We have been foolish. We are, however, grateful. We were damaged,
unable to function properly, and unable to recall our place. Sharing your
thoughts revived our own and we know now where we belong.>

<So that's it?> Mulder seethed. <Thanks a bunch... see ya later.... gotta run?>
His temper flared. Who in the hell did these creatures think they were? Okay,
so they're probably as far above mankind in the evolutionary chain as we are to
amoebas. That doesn't mean they can just waltz in, instigate this mess and
waltz out again, leaving us poor, primitive, human schmucks to pick up the
pieces. How conceited can you get? They think they're responsible for our
fate? Give me a break.

<Did you ever consider that it was what you did that has kept me alive this long
when in all respects, they should have killed me long ago? How do you know what
you did was not destined to happen?> he thought at them. <Do you have the
unmitigated gull to believe that you write your own future? If you did, you
wouldn't have crashed your ship and we wouldn't be having this conversation. I
am not bound by your simplistic codes and edicts,> he screamed silently. <This
is *my* life, *my* family, *my* home, and *my* world!! I have a *right* and a
*duty* to interfere and by god, I *will.* You have hidden behind your walls of
supposed intellectual objectivity while innocents are tormented and butchered
like insignificant lab rats. If you can perch yourselves upon your lofty,
self-righteous pedestals and accept these abominations without emotion or
action, then I am forced to believe that you condone them and therefore are no
better than the Others whom you profess to despise. The act of despising
something or someone, I might add, is a purely emotional response, but of
course, you're beyond all those basic, primitive reactions, aren't you?>

Somewhere in the vast collection of minds a glimmer of an unfamiliar feeling
began to drift slowly toward the forefront -- Guilt.

Mulder continued undaunted. <You've made intellect your god and knowledge your
religion, but in the process, you've lost your souls. Emotion and compassion
are dead in you. Love, desire, sadness, joy, and all those primitive feelings
that make life more than just existence, are nothing more to you than vague
concepts that hold no meaning in your hearts. You don't *believe* in what you
remember.>

Mulder gasped out loud as the tidal wave of their shame and remorse crashed
through his unprepared mind. And more....

<Why did you murder those people?!?> he cried in horror at the realization of
what they had done.

Skinner hauled the doctor into the room by his elbow and watched him spring into
action. Machinery was corrected and orders given to the nurses who rushed about
in a sort of controlled frenzy.

Beads of perspiration drenched Mulder's hair and trickled down his face in tiny
little rivulets. Skinner's stomach tightened as he watched the agent's hands
clench and unclench in spasmodic motions on the bed by his sides. A desperate
sounding gasp escaped the young man's swollen mouth just before sedatives were
pumped into his IV. Mulder's struggles weakened and Skinner watched as he
slowly drifted away into a state of senseless oblivion.

<We were damaged,> the voices tried to explain. <We were given instructions.
What we did was the proper course of action.>

<What you *did* was execute human beings for being fallible and making mistakes.
Their transgressions in no way warranted the death penalty!>

Mulder shared the sudden despair of their collective grief. They were re
learning what it was to feel from their direct contact with him, and they
recoiled from the revulsion Mulder experienced at the thought of their actions.
He shuddered under the mental weight of their anguish.

And there was something more -- their fear that he would refuse to relinquish
his link with them when they were found by the beings who deposited this
knowledge of the Collective within the Prototype. <Let me assure you, there is
no need for concern. If being intellectually evolved entails losing the spirit
and drive of my humanity, then I would rather be a poor, primitive, human being
than an enlightened, unfeeling, powerful fool. But why am I telling you this?
You're nothing but a technologically elaborate recording.>

<We are much more than that,> the voices replied, rather sadly he thought. <The
Collective will locate us, and when they do and we are rejoined, our
conversation will become a part of their memories as if it were their own.
They will share our dishonor and will know the emotion of pride in one whom they
thought was a mistake....>

Mulder tried to retain focus on the voices, but gradually they became so much
noise until darkness descended on his exhaustion and claimed him with peaceful
nothingness.

<Click, click, click...> The echo of Skinner's two hundred dollar shoes
resounded through the empty hallway with a steady rhythmic cadence as he
impatiently paced a scuffed path onto the hospital's otherwise shiny floor.
What in the hell had Mulder gotten himself into this time? <Don't you mean what
you got him into? *You* gave him -- them -- the damn case,> he reminded
himself. <That's your goddamn job!> his conscience defended. Yeah sure, but
when you discovered that it wasn't the VCS that had originally requested
Mulder's involvement in this case, you should have just pulled him off the damn
thing.

Right... pull him off, he gets suspicious and digs in with both heels like a
mule. No, he couldn't have reassigned him. After many years dealing with the
man, Skinner had concluded that the only thing worse than a suspicious Mulder
was a determined, pissed off Mulder.

Something else was sticking in his craw as well. Cancerman seemed to want Fox
Mulder as far away from here as possible. What did that bastard know?

Skinner glanced at the still-closed door to Mulder's room. How many hospital
rooms did this make? How many close calls? Maybe Mulder should look into
another line of work. After all, he was on the verge of supporting a
full-fledged family and for once in his life actually appeared almost joyful.
It would be more than cruel if something should happen to him now that he was
finally getting his act together.

The door finally opened. Mulder's doctor and two of the three nurses came out
of his room. Planting himself like a rock before the advancing white coats, he
singled out the doctor and allowed the others to pass.

"What the hell happened in there?" Skinner asked with more belligerence than
he'd intended. <How do you know this guy's not on the Consortium's payroll and
wasn't instructed to get
rid of Mulder quietly?> Oh come on, Walt, old boy, he scolded himself. Before
you know it you'll be as paranoid as Mulder. Then again, it wasn't like he
didn't have good reason for looking over his shoulder.

Dr. Jacobsen hesitated slightly when he discovered that he'd been rather
skillfully maneuvered into a corner with his back to the wall. This guy didn't
get to be Assistant Director of the FBI for nothing, the doctor reminded
himself. The man practically oozed authority. And it was certain Mr. Skinner
was not going to like what he had to tell him.

"We're not exactly sure what's going on here, sir," Dr. Jacobsen sighed in
frustration. "Mr. Mulder seems to have experienced a seizure, for lack of a
better description. For several minutes his brain telemetry went a little
haywire and the EEG recorded what seemed to be an echo or shadow, as if it were
tracing several impulses instead of one. We've checked the machine for
malfunctions and it appears to be in perfect working order. I just don't know
how to explain this," he said as he handed the EEG printout to Skinner. "I've
been in neurology for twenty years and I must confess that I've *never*
encountered anything like this. I don't understand what this is and I have no
idea how to treat it -- or even if I should." Dr. Jacobsen slumped against the
wall in defeat. He positively hated feeling helpless.

Skinner backed away from the doctor to give him a little more breathing room.
<This guy looks as tired as I feel.> "Is he in danger?" Skinner asked, trying
to remain calm.

Under normal circumstances, Dr. Jacobsen would have couched his response with
"possibly's" and "highly unlikely's," as he did whenever imparting this type of
medical information to a patient's relatives or friends. But if he read Mr.
Skinner correctly, he had a feeling he wouldn't appreciate being dealt with in
such vague terms, no matter how well meaning the intention. Truth was, he
didn't *know* what was wrong with his patient and he was one of the top
specialists in the country. The truth then...

"There is always danger, Mr. Skinner, when you face the unknown... and this
case," he blew out a puff of air between pursed lips, "this case is loaded with
them. I've done every test I can think of to shed some light on Mr. Mulder's
condition, but the results I'm getting back make little or no sense." His voice
held an unmasked note of desperation. Yes, he was upset and at this point, he
didn't care anymore who knew it. "I've got an unknown poison or drug that I'm
having to deal with along with EEG readings that resemble the sheet music to
'The Flight of The Bumble Bee.' I know that you would like a more definite
prognosis and I would sure like to give you one, but I can't. Right now, he's
stable and all his vitals are within normal range. Well, as normal as can be
expected for someone who's been drugged and hauled around the parking lot like a
side of beef. In fact, I was seriously considering releasing him this evening.
However, considering this latest episode, I'm going to keep him for observation,
at least until tomorrow. All his tests are negative for any brain injury or
physical abnormalities except for the abnormal EEG readings."

Skinner's brows knitted with concern. "How could you release him if you don't
know what's wrong with him?"

"Because as far as I can tell, there *is* nothing physically wrong with him that
couldn't be cured with a good night's sleep and plenty of rest. Once this
foreign substance works its way out of his system, I won't have a legitimate
reason for keeping him here. And at the rate it seems to be dissipating, it
should have worked itself out of his system by tomorrow morning. With the
exception of this one episode, Mr. Mulder appears to be in good health. Since I
have nothing else to go on, I'm of the opinion that the seizure was probably due
to his withdrawal from what appears to be a highly addictive drug." The doctor
shrugged. "We'll just have to wait and see if any other unusual side effects or
symptoms exhibit themselves during the night. If he makes if through until
morning without further incident and his blood tests are clean, he should be out
of here around noon."

"What about his leg?" Skinner asked.

"He's a lucky man. It was a clean hole right through the calf muscle -- painful
but not serious. Whatever made that wound cauterized the tissue so there was
minimal blood loss. The remainder of his wounds were superficial. We've
cleaned and dressed them, and I'll be sending him home with a prescription for
antibiotics to ward off any infections that might set in."

Dr. Jacobsen paused, giving Skinner a sideways glance. "You know, if he were
one of my regular patients, I'd tell him to go home and stay off of it for a
couple days. However, dealing with your agent earlier has convinced me that Mr.
Mulder is not an ideal patient, so I'll issue him crutches and depend on you or
his partner to make him behave and not push himself beyond his limitations."

Skinner's countenance darkened a little at this prospect. Shit.... He c
ertainly hadn't counted on becoming involved in Mulder's case and he sure as
hell hadn't signed up for "Muldersitting" as Scully called it. Hell, face it,
Walter, you'd be riding shotgun on the boy even if the doctor hadn't
mentioned it. He's a good and decent man and you care about him. Something
about Mulder had always struck a responsive chord in Skinner even in the
beginning and it bothered him to realize that he still wasn't exactly sure what
it was. It was just there and he'd learned to accept it without
question.

Skinner nodded his head, tiredly acknowledging Dr. Jacobsen's information and
instructions. The events of this day had definitely taken the wind out of his
sails. Lord knows how it was affecting Scully. He hoped she'd taken his advice
and rested for a couple of hours. He seriously doubted it. In that respect,
she was just about as driven and stubborn as her husband.

"Mr. Skinner?" Dr. Jacobsen asked. "Mr. Skinner..." he repeated with a t
entative voice when the A.D. didn't acknowledge him the first time.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, Skinner brought his attention back to the man
he'd been unintentionally ignoring for the last two or three minutes. "Uh,
yes... Sorry. I was just thinking," he said with a look of apology.

The doctor wore a faint smile of understanding on his face. "You're exhausted.
Perhaps you should take your own advice and catch a few z's before you fall
asleep on your feet."

It sounded tempting, but after what had happened this morning, Skinner didn't
think he could trust Mulder's welfare to anyone else except Scully, and possibly
Detective Moorehouse. No, he wasn't leaving this room or hallway until Dana
returned or Mulder was discharged. The chair in Mulder's room was surprisingly
comfortable and if he needed to take a nap -- he could snooze
there. If those bastards came for Mulder again, they were going to get one hell
of a surprise. "Thank you for your concern, but I'll be staying here tonight,"
Skinner replied.

Location Unknown
*****************

"To say that our superiors are displeased with the handling of the Mulder
incident would be a gross understatement," the sinister, breathy voice wheezed.

In some ways the being reminded him of a somewhat thinner version of Darth
Vader, but now that he thought about it, his visitor's egotistical attitude was
more in line with the Emperor -- power hungry, ruthless, manipulative, and evil.
The Consortium's alliance with this group had always made him uneasy, always
wondering when their allies would become their taskmasters.

"Yes," he replied, taking a slow drag off his cigarette and blowing it casually
into the air. "The members of your elite team are incredibly photogenic, aren't
they? Especially their leader. What was his name again? No matter. I'm sure
his distinguishing features are gracing every TV screen across America as we
speak. Let's hope the Collective doesn't watch the evening news," he sneered.
"Perhaps it would have been less obvious if you'd placed a flashing neon sign
over Mulder's head that read, 'Fox Mulder -- here I am, come get me.' You can
bet the Collective, and god knows who else, will be converging on the damn
hospital with a vengeance. We missed our best shot. Now they'll be expecting
us."

His visitor shifted uncomfortably. "Then we will just have to get to him before
they do," he replied.

Easier said than done, you walking corpse. Alone, Mulder could be quite
formidable, but this being had never tangled with the likes of Skinner and
that's who'd be guarding Mulder now. This whole situation could get very
interesting -- very fast. Besides, if the opportunity presented itself,
he wouldn't think twice about extracting the information for his own government,
cutting this dangerous ally out of the picture.

He was certain, now more than ever, that with the enormous power of the C
ollective in their possession, the Others would cease to be civil, opting
instead on a course of domination and slavery. He wondered if the Consortium had
given that possibility much thought. Maybe they should just give this thing
back to the Collective. At least they were ethical beings with respect for
life, not that ethics or lack thereof had really ever concerned him before
except for when it worked in his favor.

"Has there been any success locating our runaway scientist, Dr. Simons?" he
asked, smoothly changing the subject.

To his delight, this topic most certainly caused his reluctant colleague a great
deal of agitation. "No, we have yet to locate the good Dr. Simons," his visitor
replied. "However, he could not have gone far. It is only a matter of time
before he is found. He is no longer in contact with the Prototype and is not of
major concern at the moment. He will be dealt with in good time."

"With the same efficient manor used to deal with Agent Mulder, no doubt," he
commented with a sarcastic air. "I'm really quite surprised that with all your
so-called advanced intelligence, you haven't found him yet." He knew he was
treading a fine line here, but being able to rub this asshole's nose in his
failure gave him a perverse sense of satisfaction. <No doubt similar to what
Agent Mulder feels when baiting you> he thought..

The "Emperor" froze his subordinate with an icy stare. "You and I both know
that Fox Mulder is a special case and cannot be handled with the same terminal
force as can be afforded to other lesser inconveniences such as Dr. Simons. We
also know Mulder's termination would not be looked upon kindly by the Collective
if it were anything but natural causes. After this latest
fiasco, they will undoubtedly start pointing their self-righteous little digits
in our direction. Whatever we do, it must be done quickly, quietly, and with
maximum authority. Have our contact within the NSA issue an order to have Agent
Mulder placed in protective custody and held for questioning. That way any
previous claims to his disposition by the FBI will be
superseded by a higher power and there will be little Skinner can do about it,
short of forfeiting his career. After all these years, I seriously doubt he'll
be willing to do that -- even for Mulder."

<Don't be too sure about that.> Skinner had risked his reputation and career on
Mulder's behalf in the past. Of course, his doing so often coincided with some
aspect of bolstering his own position or furthering his own agenda. Still... he
was not willing to write Skinner out of the picture just yet. He'd made that
mistake once already and *that* had cost him dearly.

***************************************************